How long is she gonna pray for ?!



Cat loves to take pictures.
This is my favorite "serious"
self portrait so far.

 Catalina has been a frequent flyer in my blog posts, which is normal because she has been at my favorite age for kids (18 mos to ~ 4 yrs old) as long as I have been blogging.  I actually have several posts to complete tonight (most of them already written -- Thanks Jeremy for the great idea!) but I had to add this one in because this evening was the perfect example of a regular occurrence with my sweet Cat!

A brief background ... I was driving the kids home from Grandma Penny's house (Karen was at a Pool Board meeting and Josh Jr had a Court of Honor for Boy Scouts, which I also needed to be at).  Because it was later than I wanted to be driving home (the CoH went very long!) we decided to say night-time prayers in the car on the way home.  We do this periodically.  Even though it is not preferred, I would rather the kids say their prayers in the car than not say them at all (because they often fall asleep on the ride home).

Well Catalina (who is usually very loud) says very soft prayers.  She also sits in the very back of the van on the driver's side, so I can almost never hear her prayer.  She is still learning how to pray, so it often is much more like a conversation about whatever she is thinking about from the day or what she is seeing outside (she still hasn't quite mastered the whole "eyes closed, arms folded" concept either).  When you can hear her prayer it is inspirational and adorable!  What a relationship she must have with her Father in Heaven!  I imagine He enjoys the prayers even more than I can appreciate them ... but I bet He chuckles quite a bit while listening to them too!

The length of her prayers is equally impressive ... and (sometimes) very frustrating ... like when you can't hear if she is still praying, has fallen asleep, or is done and doing something else already.  Tonight, she prayed from the Meadowland Stake Center all the way until we passed the McDonald's on Stetson Hills, east of Powers Blvd.  And we got stopped at every light in between so this was a VERY long time!  At the end, she realized none of us knew she was done and said, very loudly, "I said AMEN !!!"

Yes, yes you did.  Amen !  :)

And here are some more recent self portraits ... in the second picture you can see how taxing it is to get the right look!  An artist who is unhappy with anything less than perfection!  :)

 

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