Christmas Morning

Huh. For some reason this post never got published. Christmas in April :)

Caeden has been asking for a Wii for two years now and Santa finally brought one....think he's excited?

Christmas Party and Gingerbread houses!

This years Mike's family Christmas party was a lot of fun. We had a great time, relaxing, eating, exchanging gifts and even making gingerbread houses.......

The Mama.....

Of course, to an almost two year old, the packaging is always better than the actual gift.....

Each family got a house to work on together. The boys had fun decorating our gingerbread cottage, but I think they enjoyed eating the rock-hard cookies, glue-like frosting, and stale granite candy even better. To each his own I guess......

Proudly showing off the finished product.....

We DO Feed Him.....

We found Tanner's latest stash......

It was under the downstairs couch this time. We found the previous hidey hole behind the curtain, in back of his bed, underneath OUR bed (sneaky! we never thought to look on our own territory), stuffed down in the pot of the silk plant......hey, we can't fault him for creativity.

This kid constantly steals food. He can sniff out sugar from anywhere in the house and no matter where we've hidden the treats we're no match for Tanner.....he can fine them here, he can find them there, he can find them ANYWHERE. We usually don't even notice anything is missing until we do some deep cleaning and come across yet another pile of wrappers, stale cookies, old fruit....even a half eaten sandwich in this picture......knowing Tanner I would guess that particular bit of food made it into the stash because it was something he had to finish eating before he got dessert.....why eat it when you can hide it?

Mike showed him this picture after we took it and now his location has changed. The hunt is on.

A Face Only A Mother Could Love.......

Hogle Zoo Christmas Light and Santa

This was a fun activity we did with my sister and her kids before Christmas......

I just had to post this picture of my niece, it's so funny. She was showing us how excited she was to go see Santa. I love her so much, she's so stinkin' cute!

Caeden's Baptism

December 4th was a special day around here. Not only were Mike and I celebrating 11 years of marriage, it was also the day our oldest kiddo decided to get baptized. He was so excited! His Papa and Grandma Jarvis both gave talks, his Grandma Bond and Aunt Cheralyn said prayers and his Perkins cousins all sang a song.

This has been such a fun age. Last year I remember that I kept thinking "there's no way he can get baptized in a year... he won't be ready... he doesn't understand... he doesn't have enough of a testimony..." but the Lord knows what he's doing. It's been amazing to watch how much his understanding and faith blossom this last year. He's grown leaps and bounds in a suprisingly short amount of time. He's matured do much and I can already see him making the transition from little kid to young man and it's wonderful to be able to be a part of that with him.

His Daddy performed the baptism and his Uncles Jake and David were witnesses. It was a doubly special occasion for Mike because not only was he baptizing his oldest son, but it was his first baptism ever....he never got the opportunity to perform one on his mission.

Kind of a funny story...someone had forgotten to fill the font that morning and so we got started quite a bit later than planned. They finally decided to go ahead with the baptism, but since the font was only half full Mike had to dip him all the way down to the floor...almost vertical.... in order to get him completely submerged.

I didn't realize we had a black, white and red theme going on until we all stood together.....except for poor Tanner in blue, oops.

I am so incredibly proud of him. He made a wonderful choice to be baptized and I hope he continues to follow the right paths in life. It's brought me new understanding of the concept of having the faith of a child. He's so absolutely trusting and sure of his Savior and Heavenly Father. He accepts Their teachings with humility and he genuinly tries to do what is right. He's compassionate of others around him and he is doing a fantastic job of teaching his younger brothers by his great example.

I love you Caeden-bug!

Wayne's Birthday Party

This last week was a hard one for me and my family. It was my brother, Wayne's, birthday on Nov. 22nd, he would have been 33. This was the first year in my entire life that I didn't talk to him or see him on his birthday. We also happend to recieve word from the mortuarty that his headstone was finally in place. In honor of Wayne we gathered a group of family and friends at the cemetary to celebrate.

We sure picked a cold and windy day! We did it on Sat. Nov 20th and my dad found out that by sheer coincidence that day is the National Suicide Survivors Day, for those who don't know the lingo, a Suicide Survivor doesn't refer to someone who attempted and failed to committ suicide, it refers to the surviving loved ones left behind when someone succeeds with suicide......how appropriate.


We bought 33 balloons and each took a turn writing a personal birthday message to Wayne on our balloon with marker.

Our plan backfired when the balloons were so tangled (from the wind) that we couldn't get them seperated so we decided to let my two brothers release them as a bunch......and they promptly got blown into a tree. We just laughed it off and said that Wayne probably had a hand in that one....he loved to tease!

Afterwards we all had hoagie sandwiches and pumpkin pie, we always had pumpkin pie on Wayne's birthday.

Seeing this was tough.......

Even though it's been 7 months it still doesn't seem real at times. His name just does NOT belong on a headstone. I love him and miss him more than I can say. I think of him every single day. Happy Birthday Big Brother!