Some December Pictures

One thing I stayed on top of this December was wrapping presents as I bought them. The drawback: this sneaky boy found where I hid some of them and decided to open one! Luckily it was one of his presents. He had fun playing with that Christmas present early.

Bryson moves around a lot at night, usually from bed to bed. All 3 of the older boys share a room so sometimes we'll find Bryson in Carter's bed or Caleb's bed (and sometimes our bed when he gets really scared...). This moment just warmed my heart, and I was glad to capture it on camera. 

 {I don't have an explanation about where Bryson's shirt is! He must have been hot or spilled water on it or something.  (If he spills on his clothes at all, he wants to take them off and put new ones on.)}

Last week as a nursery kiddo. He'll be going to Primary as a Sunbeam next year! (And I'm one nervous mommy about how he'll do with seeing me at the front of the room each week.)

We did a zoo trip with cousins in December when Aunt Lindsey and Teddy came to visit. No pictures of them. Sad.

Cousins Gavin and Lili holding baby Austin

3 months old on December 10th!

Baptism

Caleb's baptism day was scheduled for Sept. 12th. I really felt like I was going to have an August baby, so I thought Austin would be around 2 weeks old at Caleb's baptism. My younger brother lives 3 hours away, and he planned to be there at the baptism to play a musical number as well as participate in Austin's baby blessing the following day. Because Austin arrived so late on Sept. 10th, we cancelled both events.

Instead, Caleb was baptized on October 24th. There was a hurricane happening in Mexico that day, so we had some very rainy weather with predictions of flooding. I was a little concerned that we might have trouble getting to the church building due to weather! I thought it was symbolic that the earth was cleaned by rain on the same day that Caleb's life was cleaned by baptism.

Caleb and Carter both had sports games scheduled that day as well as pictures, so we thought it was going to be a super busy day. Fortunately the rain cancelled everything except Carter's pictures, but it still ended up being chaotic as Carter's pictures were an hour before the baptism. Matt and I split up to divide and conquer, but some things got forgotten--Carter's church clothes that I had set out and a towel to dry off. Both important items! So Carter attended the baptism in his soccer uniform and Caleb and Matt used paper towels to dry off after the baptism. :)

Here are some of Caleb's baptism pictures that I took:

This is the one we used to display next to the programs.

It's taken me so long to post about Caleb's baptism because I want to recreate this picture. It's a little fuzzy and Caleb's eyes are closed. We've tried twice to recreate it and something came up both times that prevented it from actually happening.

Caleb was baptized with two other children from our ward that day. Both of Caleb's home teachers spoke since they were the home teachers of another girl getting baptized that day as well. Brother Pennington gave the talk on baptism and Brother Sivula gave the talk on the Holy Ghost. Jared and Ariane played a piano duet, "The Spirit of God," as a musical number. Matt performed both the baptism and confirmation. It was a special day especially because Caleb had been looking forward to it for such a long time! Caleb has the sweetest spirit, and we feel so blessed to be his parents. We are so proud of him and this decision that will influence both this life and the next.

Great Wolf Lodge

We've decided to start setting aside money each month and save up for one family vacation every year. This year we decided to try Great Wolf Lodge, an indoor waterpark. Here are some pictures from our trip!

The boys' bunk beds

We arrived Thursday afternoon and immediately went to the waterpark. The kids loved being able to go swimming in winter!

Matt and I switched off on baby duty

Caleb and Carter pretending to be worker beavers

Austin smiling at me

Honestly, we were pretty underwhelmed by the waterpark. We live near a waterpark that we frequent during the summer and though Great Wolf Lodge had some fun rides, there were only 5 adult rides. The waterpark near our home is bigger and has a greater variety of rides. So we spent about 3 hours on Thursday at the waterpark and 2 hours on Friday morning. Fortunately the crowds didn't arrive until Friday afternoon so we never had to deal with lines; that would have tainted our opinion even more!

What made the trip totally worth it was MagiQuest. The boys had a blast with this! There were certain quests that we worked together to complete whether it was collecting a certain number of jewels or finding specific objects that were located on all 8 floors of the hotel. Between the waterpark and MagiQuest, we climbed A LOT of stairs!

The boys loved pointing the wand at stuff and seeing the objects light up or "talk."

Humongous Christmas tree

In the hotel room sporting his "Harry Potter" owwie that he got by falling off a chair as he was climbing down. This boy gets so many bumps and bruises on his forehead!

Making a magnet to remember our trip.

There was an arcade right outside the waterpark and we couldn't walk past it without Bryson disappearing inside.

Getting ready to leave on Saturday morning sporting our wolf ears. It was a lot colder as we left than when we first arrived!

We visited Clayton and Kara on our way home and did an outing at a water garden.

Then we walked around a botanical garden before making the drive back home.

Baby Austin did really well on the trip! Sometimes a young baby is easier because he slept a lot. We enjoyed the weekend getaway and spending time together as a family! 

Austin's Blessing

Austin Logan was blessed on Nov. 15, 2015 at 2 months old

Same blessing outfit as all my boys :)

Beautiful blanket that my mother made for Austin

Matt blessed Austin and my dad, Jared, Zane, and the bishop stood in the circle. Austin was blessed to grow in health and strength, be a beacon to his family and a light of the gospel in these turbulent times. He was blessed to seek truthfulness and gain a burning testimony in his heart, to serve a mission to progress the Lord's work, and to take a faithful companion to the temple. He was blessed to have the strength to serve in many capacities, be an example to his family, and bear the burdens of others. "Your family loves and cares for you deeply and are always there for you."

Ribbon Festival

Due to Caleb's piano teacher moving, Caleb started with a new teacher this summer. Our options were limited so we were excited just to get in since there were about 15 other parents looking for a new teacher as well. His new teacher is further away, more expensive, and teaches in a different style (Suzuki method). However, she also has more training and provides a lot more opportunities for competing and different kinds of recitals. (Caleb participated in a duet recital end of August.)

Though the transition to a new method of teaching has been rough, the Suzuki method with its focus on ear-training and technique has been good for Caleb. (His last teacher didn't focus a lot on technique.) His sight-reading is pretty strong so learning to play by ear has been frustrating to him. Taking from a new teacher has been humbling for Caleb because he sees there's lots of areas he still has to improve.

For this Ribbon Festival competition, Caleb played two Suzuki songs in front of a highly-qualified judge who wrote praises and critiques. All the students get a medal.

Caleb standing next to his cousin, Dallin, who really excels with the Suzuki method of teaching! Hearing other students play quite difficult Suzuki songs has motivated Caleb to stick with it and keep working.

Random

I chopped my hair off. It was time for a new do.

Bryson asked to take a bath the other morning and hopped into Austin's bath.

Carter had the assignment to decorate this turkey as a family project with the focus being to camouflage the turkey in the classroom so he's not caught for dinner. Matt seriously comes up with the greatest ideas; he had the idea to use crayon wrapper pieces to decorate each part of the body (except for the head because it got a little tedious). I'm not sure this picture does the turkey justice because it looked awesome!

I haven't taken any bath pictures of Austin yet so I caught a smile the other day. He enjoys his baths but hates getting out of the warm water. :)

(2 months)

Last Game of the Season

 Caleb's team, the Bee Mets, ended up in first place. He was very excited about his trophy.

Caleb with his head coach and assistant coaches

 Caleb's team

Caleb was nicknamed "Happy Feet" because he had a nervous twitch with his feet that he did every time he was at bat as well as in the outfield on occasion. He would bang the toe of his shoe on one foot into the dirt a few times before switching to the other shoe. Caleb's outfield positions were mostly shortstop and 2nd base the entire season.

Caleb ended up loving his baseball season and wants to continue in Spring where it's a lot more competitive (they have an all-star team and play against other leagues). He will move up from machine pitch to kid pitch next season.

Baseball games can be long but Bryson did pretty well at the few games he attended.