I mean we bless Albus all the time with food, shelter, and love (not that he ever says thank you.) Susan insists that I add in here, that Albus doesn't say anything so I shouldn't take it personally.
But this was the momentous religious baby blessing ceremony. Baby blessings are an important, if not crucial part of the church. And they reflect the value we place on our family.
But the fun hardly started Sunday morning. To tell you the whole story we need to zip back to Friday morning.
48 Hours Until the Baby Blessing
Albus Crisis! A mere 45 minutes before we are to see John, Ivan, and Valerie, Albus must eat. And this is not a debatable proposition.
Susan obliges. But Albus, the pokee, takes his precious time eating. So we must beg John to meet us and not vice versa as we had planned.
When the kids arrive, they bum rush us. I use us liberally. They're mostly excited to see Susan. Though I think my epic dance off with them at Melody's wedding has ingratiated me to them. They are also thrilled to see the baby.
See. Not touch. For all our offers neither Ivan nor Valerie has any interest in laying so much as a finger on Albus. Not that Albus complained. He would soon get plenty of touching.
CORRECTION: Here is indeed documented proof that Ivan did in fact lay many fingers on Albus
46 Hours Until the Baby Blessing
We arrive at the Houston Museum of Natural History. Some of you may recall that Susan and I had once before tried to visit the museum only to end in epic failure, as I wrote about over for LDS.net. This trip went much better.
First up: Butterfly Center
(From the Outside)
This place is wicked cool. It reminded me a little bit of Bio-Dome, because I am often looking for ways to compare my life to Pauly Shore movies.
After a long and winding interactive museum filled with insect factoids, you drop into this artificial rain forest!
Valerie and Ivan were thrilled at the sheer number of butterflies constantly everywhere. One butterfly landed on the sidewalk, apparently injured. And the kids had been strictly cautioned to not touch any butterflies, so everytime they walked by they went to great lengths to circle around.
But you'd think that human babies were at threat of extinction, because no matter where I took Albus, people cooed at him from every direction.
The rest of the museum was far too immense to appreciate while carting about three children. Susan liked nothing else.
Valerie, Ivan, and I, though, thought the Foucault Pendulum was wicked cool.
42 Hours Until the Baby Blessing
Chick Fil-A
41 Hours Until the Baby Blessing
Ivan and I discuss Mario Kart Strategy
40 Hours Until the Baby Blessing
The rest of Susan's family arrives in Texas. They proceed immediately to Chick-Fil-A. We try to explain we already left. This doesn't matter. Albus was very excited to meet his extended family.
38 Hours Until the Baby Blessing
Time to introduce the Vegas in-laws to Rudy's. This is obviously a smashing success, because Rudy's is amazing. And nothing screams "I'm in Texas" quite as thoroughly as mouth watering ribs you have to clean up yourself.
Albus gets hungry. And we must leave. Immediately.
35 Hours Until the Baby Blessing
We celebrate our nation's independence via colorful explosives. Well here's actually the fireworks Susan and I saw.
But in our defense, we're exhausted bums, with a cranky baby, and we never even liked fireworks to begin with. Don't judge us.
24 Hours Until the Baby Blessing
We live about 10 minutes away from NASA. Like the NASA. Like we are in the Houston of "Houston we have a problem"
It's likely that Susan and I don't take advantage of this mind boggling fact often enough. If you want to get all your NASA warm feelies, you can watch this cool movie.
So there's like real NASA, and then there's carnival NASA that people get to visit. Carnival NASA is super fun. Because you get to make Styrofoam rockets and see how high they'll fly. And because they'll hitch up your wife and make her bounce around like she's walking on Mars.
Excuse the photo quality. I was balancing a baby.
20 Hours until the Baby Blessing
To top off our epic day of NASA fun we went on a tour of the grounds. After our first stop, however, the tour was cancelled. Sent Back. Kaputs, because of some thunder storm. The guides kept mumbling something about safety and not wanting us to die.
15 Hours Until the Baby Blessing
My parents arrived, but my dad got beepered into work. Trying to solve the problem of someone who kept telling him she had to go talk to someone else, and then would come back and propose to him the idea he had suggested 30 minutes before. So the first time we got to see them was at Dinner.
Grandma Cunningham seized the baby. And what had begun as a gentlemanly skirmish for time with the baby spiraled into an all out war.
Sorry for the random picture, but babies in mustaches can cheer up most war-like situations.
10 Hours Until the Baby Blessing
Are you kidding me, Susan and I had been asleep since 9!
90 Minutes Until the Baby Blessing
Will Albus eat at just the right moment so that we can leave for church on time and avoid an unusually cranky baby? He will!
20 Minutes Until the Baby Blessing
Ivan and I discuss Mario Kart Strategy
15 Seconds Until the Baby Blessing
Oh holy anxiety! I forgot they do these at the beginning of sacrament meeting!
The Baby Blessing
Albus was blessed with:
Insight into the feelings and emotions of himself and others.
Vision toward the future and the ability to set and realize goals.
Light of Christ that he would recognize and follow the light in his life.
10 Seconds After the Baby Blessing
You have to remember what you said. You have to write it down. Or posterity will never know.
20 Seconds After the Baby Blessing
Don't forget. Don't forget.
30 Seconds After the Baby Blessing
What did I say again?
40 Seconds After the Baby Blessing
Oh, that's right!
2 Hours After the Baby Blessing
In priesthood, I introduce my father as my old man, and to top it off, Susan's father as my old man in-law, because if you're going to go in. You might as well go all the way in.
3 Hours After the Baby Blessing
We gather for obligatory pictures
4 Hours After the Baby Blessing
After hours and hours of slaving over our Stauffer's Lasagnas, I pulled them out of the oven and took lunch over to the lobby of the hotel where Susan's folks were staying. They had arranged to use their breakfast area for our lunch since there were so many of us. Lunch, which I had randomly stressed over for days, turned out just perfect.
5 Hours After the Baby Blessing
Valerie, Ivan, Grandma Cunningham and I play Red Light-Green Light. Valerie and Ivan never quite agreed on the rules, which led to the inevitable dissolution of the game. Which is a pity, because I was totally winning.
7 Hours After the Baby Blessing
We say goodbye to Uncle Mark and John, and Valerie and Ivan who return because they have regular person stuff to do on Monday.
8 Hours After the Baby Blessing
The remaining celebrators descend on our home for an evening of burritos and relaxation.
24 Hours After the Baby Blessing
Dan, Melody, Susan's Parents, Susan, and I gathered together Monday morning and divided along gender lines. The ladies went to have their toes ornamented, while the gentleman returned to NASA.
You see we missed going to this little gem called Rocket Park when our tour was cut short. But, and I had no idea about this before, Rocket Park is totally free. If you're one of my Houston friends, just go. Like stop reading the blog, go to rocket park and come back. Because why not? There's a big warehouse with a Saturn V rocket inside. And a great exhibit about every single Apollo mission.
This place is kind of amazing. To give you a sense of how big the Saturn rocket is think of a giraffe. It's bigger than a giraffe. It's also bigger than a 36 story building.
31 Hours After the Baby Blessing
Everyone leaves, and Susan and I begin to recover. It was great to see everyone, and nice to calm back down into regular life. Albus, however, was told he was cute so many times, I had to come up with a new lullaby, just to help keep his ego in check.
Little Albus, I think
That you're a cutie pie
But I am very biased
So that might be a lie.
Albus, Albus, Albue
How can I know if you're cute or not
When everyone who says you are
Loves you an awful lot?
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