Family Rituals and Tula's First Birthday

A few weeks ago my family gathered to celebrate my little niece's birthday.  I had just attended a Servant Leadership class on the power of ritual.  We discussed both personal and cultural rituals; public, private, or secret rituals, spontaneous or arranged and rituals that arise from the stages and ages of life.  So here we were, my little family, celebrating the birthday of a granddaughter, a daughter, a cousin, a niece...And while the weather wasn't great and my husband was sick and couldn't join us until later, what mattered was that we all sat down and ate dinner together that night.

We started the celebration early with a gathering at our house the night before.

the birthday gal with momma and papa.

Tula and Grandpa Jim

kissing my niece, one of my fave things to do.

with Grandma Kat and Papa Bob

with cousin Owen at the birthday party

I think she enjoyed herself.

we stretched our legs, went on a walk and breathed in some of that chilly Spring air.

devising ways to scale the church wall.

Darla dog

cousin time.

I had a fun time at my birthday party.  Bye everybody.

From beginning to end

the rituals of our lives shape each hour,

day, and year.

Everyone leads a ritualized life:

Rituals are repeated patterns of meaningful acts.

If you are mindful of your actions, you

will see the ritual patterns,

If you see the patterns, you may

understand them.

If you understand them, you may enrich

them.

In this way, the habits of a lifetime

become sacred.

--

Servant Leadership, Viterbo University

Ian Turns 11

A Dump Dinner(video to follow) Legos and Air Soft guns.  This was the focus of the night for the kids....the Air Soft gun really.  He did run and put his Legos together.  And they were immediately consulting the U.S. Army Survival Guide book which thrilled him.  But the kiddos were mighty enthusiastic when Ian received the Air Soft gun for his birthday.   He's smart.  He's into strategy and building things and knowing how things work.   According to the many Internet sites devoted to air soft guns they are defined as: air powered ballistic projectors that replicate real fire arms. Yikes.  Sounds awful to me, however they are plastic and make virtually no noise.   I don't know, I played hopscotch and hid in my books at that age, so it's all a little confounding to me.

Ian readying his James Bond pose.

Between sophisticated video games and James Bond movies, they're bored by anything less.  Here's Emma taking a shot.

Even Dad took a shot.  This was a rare moment to see any kind of gun in his hand.  He's a bird watcher.  The one time he went hunting as a kid, he shot a squirrel and felt terrible about it.

Enough talk about guns, let's look at a cute baby.

Tula and Momma came for the party.

She was unfazed by Dad in his scary Jason mask.

The most exciting thing for the adults was the Dump Dinner...essentially a Crawfish Boil dumped on the table.  Yum.

Cupcakes, Ian's favorite.

The O-man

Time for bed.

Happy Birthday, Ian.  We love you!