Five Dads

If you come here fairly often, you know that our youngest son and his wife recently welcomed their first baby, a sweet little girl.  So now all five of our sons, incredibly, are dads.

For the past few years, my prayer has been to live long enough to meet son #5’s first child.  He's five years younger than his next oldest brother, and he got married about five years behind the last of the rest of them.  I felt like my husband and I had been very blessed to see our four oldest boys become dads (more than once each!); so I would pray, "Please God, let me live to see my baby become a dad, too!" 

Now that I've met his darling firstborn child, my prayer has changed to, "Thanks so much!  I am eternally grateful!  Now if you don't mind, I'd like to meet a few more of his children, too, if you're going to send more. I don't mean to be greedy, but you know: ‘Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.’  (Matthew 7:7)  Just asking, seeking, and knocking here…but Thy will be done, of course!”

                                            🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

It has been a unique blessing to watch our boys become fathers, let me tell you.  I can think of few things that have been more rewarding.  All five of them have embraced fatherhood with zeal, falling into the role as naturally as if they'd been born for it (and since they don't have religious vocations, I absolutely believe they were born for it).  

It's about the most beautiful sight these eyes have ever seen, watching these beloved boys with their children.  And to illustrate that point, I'm just going to end this post with a little photo dump (using some snapshots--not necessarily the most recent ones-- culled from the hundreds, maybe thousands, I have to choose from!).

Son #1 (father of 6 on earth, 4 in Heaven), 
with his youngest.

Son #2 (father of 4 on earth, one in Heaven, and one
on the way), with his third-born.

Our middle son (father of 5), with his firstborn.

Son #4 (father of 4), with his youngest.

Our baby, with his first baby.

I LOVE my family.  Love them to pieces.  These boys.  Their wives.  And the 20-going-on-21 grandchildren they've given us to treasure, as well as the five tiny precious souls who wait to meet us in Heaven (pray for us, sweet babies! We need your help!).

Thank you, God, for EVERYTHING!  Especially for these five dads.

A St. Patrick's Day Post (on St. Joseph's Feast Day)

There is almost nothing that makes me happier than having my family gathered at our house, to celebrate a holiday or even for no special reason at all.  But holidays are, of course, especially fun.

St. Patty's Day is a particularly special holiday for the Pearl clan, because there is so much Irish blood flowing through our veins (well, a whole lot more of it on my husband's side than mine, but I've got some of it, too).

Our bishop gave a dispensation, so we had a green light for eating meat on this one Friday during Lent, in honor of the Emerald Isle's patron saint; therefore, I was able to make traditional Irish fare like corned beef and cabbage and beef stew.

Our three VA boys and their families came over for the evening, along with the brother of one of our daughters-in-law and his wife, who were visiting from FL. Food was eaten, drinks were drunk (but not to worry, nobody got drunk!), and a house got very messy. When 13 grandchildren ranging in age from 8 down to almost a year visit your house, there will be sticky spots on the floor afterward, and lots and lots of crumbs to vacuum. (But if you knew how much I love to vacuum, you would realize that this is not a bad problem for me to have.  Ha ha!  No, but really, that wasn't sarcasm: I love to vacuum!)

Cousins make the best friends!

We had an overabundance of food; but too much is definitely better than not enough, right?

Here are the things we had that I would definitely serve again, along with the traditional corned beef and cabbage:

1. Martha Stewart's  Loaded baked potato dip with potato chips.  Delicious.  Practically a meal in itself.

2. Keogh's Sour Cream and Shamrock potato chips, from Ireland.  (Yes, SHAMROCK!  Did you know that shamrocks are edible?! I didn't.)  We discovered them at Aldi's when we were in TN.  My favorite chips ever.

3. Mule Punch--my own invention: dump one can of frozen limeade in a punch bowl, add five bottles of cold ginger beer, stir (and a few drops of green food coloring if it's March 17).  That's it!  Then have a shot glass nearby, with vodka for Moscow Mules, bourbon for Kentucky Mules, and tequila for Mexican Mules.  It's delicious as is for the underage crowd, but spiked it becomes a tasty adult beverage. 

4. These shortbread cookies, from Ina Garten.  (You can dip them in chocolate, but I left them plain.) Mouthwateringly good!

Here's what I would skip next time:

1. The Pinterest-y rainbow of fruit, with clouds (mini marshmallows) at one end and a pot of gold (gold-covered chocolate candies) at the other.  It's cute and all, but not worth the trouble.  Just having a bowl of cut-up fruit makes more sense, in my opinion.  We had both options going and almost no one picked fruit from the rainbow.

2. I asked one of my daughters-in-law to make a veggie tray in Irish flag colors.  She used carrots and peppers for the orange part, cauliflower for the white, and broccoli and cucumbers for the green.  It was AWESOME, but I feel bad about all the effort she put into it.  Because...dare I say this?  Veggies aren't always the first thing people go for at our parties.  What does that say about us Pearls?

Anyway, it's usually not really about the menu anyway, is it?  It's about the people.

Especially these people.  (Of the 13 grandchildren who were there, only one is missing from these two photos.)

So that's the recap of our celebration.  One of our young grandsons is studying violin, so maybe someday in the future he can fiddle us some Irish tunes at our St. Patrick's Day party!  Wouldn't that be grand?

I’m hanging up my St. Patty’s apron until next year, and already planning the menu for 3/17/24: maybe it will be an all-potato feast (rather than a famine)!  Keough’s sour cream and shamrock potato chips with that heavenly loaded baked potato dip.  Twice-baked potatoes stuffed with butter, sour cream, cheese, and bacon as a main course, methinks.  ☘️  

Enough of that—I’ve got plenty of time to menu plan.

Slainte, dear readers! ☘️

Saint Patrick, pray for us!  St. Joseph, pray for us!

Catching Up: Our Week+ with Our Baby's Baby

We had a family St. Patrick’s Day party at our house last night, and I love posting about Pearl holiday celebrations.  But I’m behind on my blogging (what’s new?!), and I wanted to first archive memories from our recent stay in Nashville, when we had the joy of meeting our 20th grandchild and helping our youngest son and his wife as they transitioned into their brand new roles of mommy and daddy.

On the 14th, we drove back home, after spending almost two weeks with our baby and HIS baby.  My husband and I were privileged to have arrived on the 2nd, just hours after our new little granddaughter's birth, and to meet her very shortly after she'd made her grand entrance into the world.

Papa and Grammy had a wonderful time while we were there, taking turns holding that precious tiny human when her tired parents needed to rest, taking pictures of her, and falling in love with her.  All babies are precious; but this one is particularly beautiful and sweet-tempered (says her besotted but totally unbiased grandmother!). 

Also, I did a good bit of cooking and cleaning, and my husband got a few of the kids’ "honey-do" items off the list--there always seem to be a number of them when you move into a new house!

Mending fences.

Building storage shelves for the garage.

 

We got to be there at the little one's first Mass, and then went out to brunch with her and her parents afterward.

It was tough to say goodbye, and in a perfect world this little family would live less than an hour from us, as our three middle sons and their families do.  This son and our firstborn (our "bookend boys") may be far away in miles, but they are always very close in our hearts.

As we drove off, our son ”waved at us through the trees” (or more correctly, through the townhouse units).  And if you want to know what that quote means, grab a hanky and read this old post, written back when he  graduated from Notre Dame in 2015.  It's one of my favorites.

Okay...I'm not crying, you're crying!  (LOL)

Next up:  St. Patrick’s Day party recap.  Hopefully coming soon!  

The New Daddy

 

If this isn’t the sweetest thing ever, I don’t know what is!  (If you don’t know what’s going on here, check out yesterday’s post.)  💗

Welcome, Little One!

Early yesterday morning, our youngest son’s wife was admitted to the hospital to be induced.  She was a week past her due date with baby #1, and her doctor thought it was time to give her a little help to get the process started.

As of 24 hours later, not much was happening.  So this morning, they started her on pitocin and then things finally got moving in earnest.  Meanwhile, we got on the road at about 6:30 this morning, headed for Nashville to meet grandchild #20 (!!).

At 12:28 CST our daughter-in-law gave birth to an 8 lb.-1oz. baby girl, who cried “right out of the gate” (as her sports-loving dad described it), and both mom and baby are doing well. We are just over an hour away now, so we will have only missed the birth by a few hours by the time we get there. 

I have to say that the Pearl family text stream was lively (and often amusing) last night and this morning.  One of the fun things about having an all-boy family is watching the way the brothers interact with each other—as only guys can. They make me laugh.

For instance, when son #5 and his wife first checked into the hospital and posted the above picture to the stream, one of the sisters-in-law told the mom-to-be that she looked great.  To which the daddy-to-be replied, “she demanded that I take a picture now before she gets un-cute.”

Right away, quick-witted son #4 came back with, “Felt cute.  Might have a baby later.  Idk.” 😂

Just a little while ago, our oldest son pointed out to his youngest brother, “Not only is your kid’s initials a word, her birthday is a palindrome.  Well done.”  Which I hadn’t thought of, and that’s kind of cool!  3/2/23!

It’s so different having a baby in the age of cell phones and texts (complete with hilarious memes!). When I was having babies (back in prehistoric times), extended families were in the dark about how things were going for as long as it took to get through labor and delivery, and pictures didn’t come until you could drop your film off at Walmart and wait for your blurry prints to be mailed back!

Whereas we’ve already seen what our new little granddaughter looks like!  It’s so wonderful!

Our baby, holding his baby’s hand.  😭

Welcome to the world, little one!  Papa and Grammy can’t wait to meet you! 💗

(P.S. Blogging on your iPhone, in the car: not for the faint of heart!)