Baby Blessing (February 2014)

Welcome to the family sweet baby!

Our new sweet baby was given a name and a blessing at our church in February. It was a long busy wonderful weekend. My dad flew in for the weekend and the kids loved playing with their grandpa. Many games of Uno were played and time was spent playing catch and eating delicious Texas BBQ as well.

Playing catch with Grandpa

  Then on Sunday morning early I drove about 1.5 hours away to pick up Fixitman's niece who is serving her mission there! She was given permission to come up and join us for the day which was really neat. She also got permission to hold her new cousin!

Our niece and her newest cousin!

  Missionaries usually serve in pairs and stay with their companions all the time. Instead of her companion coming with her though, a girl who was preparing for a mission and lived in their area served as her companion for the day while I served as a companion with our niece for the day. It was 1.5 hours each way so I drove for 6 hours that Sunday so she could join us and make it back to her mission service that evening. Gratefully Baby is a good car traveler and as long as he was fed regularly did not cry. My dad also helped me with the driving in the evening when I was really tired.

Blessing day

This is my fourth son and they have now all worn the same beautiful blessing outfit that my mom made back when Dinoguy was born. What made it extra special is my sister's son has also worn the outfit now and I have now sent it on to my other sister for the upcoming blessing of her new son. It's becoming a family heirloom! Baby was almost 3 months old when we blessed him and the outfit still fit but was definitely tighter than it has been on any of the other kids! We had tried to schedule a weekend when more of Fixitman's family could attend but things didn't work out, so that just made it more special to have my dad and our missionary niece there.

My sweet fifth baby

 Baby blessings aren't required ordinances, but serve as an official naming ceremony of the baby and putting them on church record as part of our family. They are also a great chance to give the new child a father's blessing and welcome them into our family with a small celebration. We celebrated by making good food - my husband's special macaroni salad and delicious sandwiches made for a relaxed but delicious Sunday afternoon supper after church.

Cousins!

 Our sweet new baby boy is named after a recently deceased uncle of Fixtman. His name has personal meaning from our genealogy on both sides of the family. All of my kids hold names from our family genealogy because I want them to remember their ancestors who came before them and gave them a legacy of faith and love. They also provide examples of good people who lived good lives as examples for my kids. So Fixitman and I put a lot of thought into the names we give our kids. We want their names to be someone from family history, someone who was a good person, a name we like the sound of and works with our last name, and when the baby is born that fits their personality. We had a different name in mind as a likely name before this sweet baby was born that did NOT fit him at all and we spent some good time choosing another name and seeing if it seemed to really fit him before settling on his name.

Baby and Grandpa

 I now wish we'd tried for a family photo with all of the kids but I didn't think of it at the time. People sometimes aren't keen on all my picture taking plans and I'm just happy for the pictures I have. Ah well. He's sure a cutie. We love him bunches and are so glad he is part of our family now!

Love him.

Celebrating Easter all week

Dying Easter Eggs 2013

It's almost Easter. In fact it is Holy Week and I want to do some nice activities with my kids to help them remember our Savior and learn about the significance of His actions this week. It is a little late to be planning but I made a simple plan for each day this week, trying to bridge the interest levels of my kids and incorporate family traditions and favorite activities. My goal is to celebrate and teach but keep it low key and reasonable.

The first thing I'm doing is downloading the Easter All Week booklets for the scriptures and simple summaries of what happened each day of this week. We did these before but it has been a few years and I doubt my older boys will remember.

Then in addition to the scripture readings, for my younger kids I'm reading an Easter themed story each day and for all of the kids we'll have a simple activity. While I wish I had started with something yesterday on Palm Sunday, I think it'll be okay to start today.

The books are ones I have in our personal library or have borrowed from the local library. I got ideas for books from this list.

Monday 
Book – The Little Duck by Judy Dunn
Activity – Plan of Salvation puzzle

     Scripture Reading from booklet

Tuesday 
Book – The Legend of the Easter Egg by Lori Walburg
Activity – Jerusalem Temple coloring page

     Scripture Reading from booklet

Wednesday 
Book – The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes by Du Bose Heyward
Activity – Shaving Cream Egg painting 

     Scripture Reading from booklet

Thursday 
Book – Little Bunny’s Easter Egg Surprise by Jeanne Modesitt
Activity – Dye Easter eggs

     Scripture Reading from booklet

Friday 
Book – My Easter Basket and the True Story of Easter by Mary Manz Simon
Activity – Passover Themed Meal

     Scripture Reading from booklet

Saturday 
 Activity – Resurrection Rolls 
Book – Petook, An Easter Story by Caryll Houselandero  

      Scripture Reading from booklet

Sunday 
Book – I feel my Savior’s Love, Artwork by Greg Olsen
Activity – Family Easter Egg Hunt 

     Scripture Reading from booklet

  
 The Resurrection Rolls are a family favorite and are pretty simple. I've not done a Passover themed meal before, but using the ideas linked above I think I can do a simple one for my kids.

Well that is my plan for the week. What fun things are you doing with your family to celebrate Easter and teach about the Savior this week?

February 2013 Forts, Friends, Fun

 Here are some pictures from several things we did in February.

I had Fixitman take a portrait of me in February after we went on one of those rare date things. Here it is!

Princess and a friend playing one day. I took the picture because she was wearing a skirt with leggings of her own choice. This was very exciting to me! (I won't let her wear tight leggings alone anymore and she hasn't liked wearing skirts. Together they make a great girly outfit that is play friendly and still modest. I have suggested it several times but been told no. So I was thrilled to see this outfit!)

My four kids playing in a tent fort in the living room. Tent forts were very popular in February.

Princess and Little Guy were proud of their duplo buildings they built this day and demanded a picture.

Fixitman finished the shields so that we had one for each child.

 The Blue & Gold Cub scout banquet had a knights of the round table theme this year. We were advised that all boys should bring a cardboard sword and shield in addition to their decorated cake and also they were to build a small catapult (from a kit) for a competition. Since we had already given each kid a wooden sword for Christmas and had 3 shields already from various Halloween costumes, all that was needed was to make a shield for Little Guy. They were all quite pleased to be equipped thus. The banquet was pretty awesome as far as Blue & Gold's go. I should say that the swords are frequently lost by the younger ones for hitting others with them. Teaching them stage fighting is on the list of necessary lessons still.

Ready for battle

Posing with their weapons.

Princess' cake decoration the night before while big brothers prepared theirs for scouts

Dinoguy's castle cake for Blue & Gold

Trainboy's castle cake for Blue & Gold

Our minivan stickers from my dear brother. Each kid picked their own character.  The family is in order from left to right.

 

Handsome little guy ready for church. He wore a tie so I wanted a picture!

The previous picture caused an impromptu photo session and we might have been late to church because of it.

Princess all primped and ready for church. (She LOVES her pink cardigan)

Trainboy all handsome and clean and stylish

Dinoguy looking handsome

All four handsome kids ready for church

Trainboy at the Webelos family campout

Dinoguy and friends around a campfire

 We have had awesome Webelos leaders this year for Dinoguy and a family campout in a nearby backyard that had a wilder feel to it was planned. The boys had a blast. Fixitman was exhausted from work and was lucky to have Little Guy fall asleep with him quite early. Princess and Trainboy joined them pretty quickly since it was a cooler night and sprinkled rain a bit. Dinoguy was up until I made him go to bed. And they were up at the crack of dawn too. It was a fun experience though.

Trainboy gets baptized! (January 2013)

At the beginning of the new year, Trainboy was able to get baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Since he had turned 8 in December, he had already had an interview with our bishop and we chose to participate in the baptism service held in his Grandparents' stake in Idaho so that more family could celebrate with us.

Cuddling with his blanket

Length shot shows the full blanket. He should still be able to use it when he is 6 feet tall.

I just like this picture.

For his special baptism present, I had been working all year on his crocheted blanket. He chose the pattern and the colors. I crocheted like crazy to finish it by his baptism. He loved it when it was finished though which made it worth all 50 billion color changes (just an estimate an it may be exaggerated).

Handsome guy

Making his "I'm freezing!" face

He nicely agreed to have his picture taken the day before standing outside in the cold snow so that I could finish a photo display I wanted to put up at the lunch the next day. His Idaho Grandma gave him the lovely white tie and the lego belt was a previous year Christmas present I had made.

Standing in front of the font with Dad

8 years goes by so quickly!

After the baptism service, we had a family lunch buffet with sandwiches and cookies. (His choice!) We were happy to have his Grandpa from South Carolina there as well as several of my siblings in addition to Grandma and Grandpa and several Aunts and Uncles and lots of cousins from Idaho.

My photo display showing him on blessing day, growing up, birthday and baptism day.

One end of the buffet view with Princess starting in on the sandwiches

From the other end with the treats!

We also took photos with family before they all scattered again. I didn't get a picture with everyone there which would have been fun, but here are some pictures we did get.

With his Aunt

Fixitman and his nephew with the same name

With his recently engaged Aunt and her fiance

With his cousin

With Grandma and Grandpa

With Grandpa from South Carolina

Mom, Grandpa, Trainboy

An attempt at a family photo.

Church Christmas Party and Children's Nativity (December 2012)

Angels and shepherds

Our church congregation had a simple Christmas party with a potluck and a children's nativity play. Three of my kids were in the simple production. I tried to take some pictures, but they are kind of blurry thanks to the weaknesses of digital zoom. Luckily a friend of mine was assigned to take pictures and got a few cute ones.

Angels and shepherds again

The wise men (and women) came later (everyone else is supposed to be off stage)

Trainboy as a shepherd

Princess as an angel

Dinoguy as a Wise man

Me adjusting his turban

Little Guy & Princess eating their ultra healthy food (they chose almost all treats)