Cate's 2nd birthday

On Sunday we celebrated 2 years of Cate. We started the day with a baptism service at church and finished with a backyard party with family and lots of little friends.
Here are some of my thoughts about the day:
* Having the Peggs and McKays next to us in church made me relax and made it feel like home again
* It was great to have family members there too
* I loved hearing my husband singing "strongly" beside me
* I noticed that the band was almost the same as at Matthew's funeral(Tania and Andy, Tessa, Darren plus 2 others) and that made me cry
* I was glad to do something special for Cate and acknowledge her place in our family publicly/in front of our church family, as we had done previously in different ways for Anabelle and Matthew
* It felt good to declare our intentions to raise her as a follower of Jesus, which I had been feeling inadequate for recently. Thank God for the prayers of faithful friends
* We love having backyard birthday parties!

Celebrating Cate

On Saturday was Cate's 1st birthday. It was a beautiful sunny spring day, perfect for a Teddy Bear's Picnic! She behaved wonderfully, wasn't overawed by the number of people (big and small) in our backyard and enjoyed her cake! It was a fun day. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story. We love Cate! I have loved cuddling her (especially when she was little and would fall asleep on my shoulder), loved feeding her, loved watching her learn new things (like figuring out that crawling could be done on her knees not just her belly), listening to her "talking" and deciphering new words (like Ted-dee, Gar-de(n), Dad-dee and most recently "Cat-ee). She's so cute!