Alexandra's Baptism- Part 2

There she is after the baptism! I couldn't wait to share this picture. It's one of my favorites. All of the pictures that I have are from my camera...and most of them were taken by me. I have yet to call the photographer to see if the pictures that he took are ready.

Here's a picture of Alexandra and her Nona before the baptism. This is only the beginning of a rough ceremony. Alexandra knew that something was going to happen and she wasn't very cooperative. See how she's reaching for me as I take the picture? She put up a good fight at the church. She screamed throughout most of the ceremony. She kicked and punched to get away from her Nona and the priest. I held her for the majority of the ceremony even though the Nona really should. She loves her Nona, but I think that there was more excitement and attention than she could handle. If you have a baby and want to have a baptism, I suggest doing it while the baby is still and infant...not a toddler. :)

After the ceremony she settled down and that's how I managed to get a few nice shots.

Little Joji wants to cheer her up.

Izabella's dress is pictured above. She loved this dress! Below is one of the very few photos where my two children are actually together and you can see how she looked in her dress. As you can see, Foti is untucked and comfortable. He was running around throughout the ceremony. Everyone, including the priest, kept asking..."where's your husband?". I frequently whispered, " chasing Foti" or " looking for Foti". Foti just doesn't like to be involved in gatherings of this sort. He did the same thing at the last baptism that we attended, but it didn't really matter then because it wasn't his sister being baptized. So, when we look at the pictures 20 years from now and he's not present in most of them, we can just laugh and tell him that he put us through hell on the day of his little sister's baptism. The girl in the pink dress is Alexandra's God sister, Irini.

*** Me & another BAD hair style ***

Yes, it's true. I hated my hair. It's not what I wanted at all. Everyone was really nice and complimented me but I didn't like it one bit. Why? Because it's not me. Once again I brought a photo of what I wanted my hair to look like on this very special day but alas...my hairstylist had another idea. My hair looks nothing like the picture that I handed her, nothing. My new koubara (the Nona) and I talked about it the other day and said, "well-as the day went on it started looking more like you". AAAACCKKK! Better yet, when I walked in the door fresh from the salon my kids cracked up laughing. Iza said, " Foti, (hee, hee, hee) LOOK AT MAMA!" (giggle, giggle, giggle)...and Kosta inquired, "how much did I pay for that?" and walked away. Fantastic. I think that I'll shave my head and start over. The day was about our little princess, not me- and the show had to go on.

Here's something that I forgot to include in the previous post. It's the decoration that we put on the koloumbithra. The koloumbithra is the vessel that holds the water in which the baby is baptized. It looked so beautiful during the ceremony. Here's a close-up showing some detail...

Finally, a photo of the dessert boxes that were chosen for to hold the sweets that were handed out at the end of the receiving line after the baptism. I didn't have the chance to take pictures of the actual dessert. We chose a dessert called "coke" (kok). It's a cream filled puffy pastry that's easily eaten by hand. Ours had pink frosting instead of the typical chocolate frosting, they were delicious!

I'm taking a break for a few days. Hopefully, the photographer's pictures will be ready and I will have some pictures from the actual ceremony. Until then...