January 23, 2010 - "I don't know if there is a record for this, but if there is, I think we came close"

We thought of everything... Printed the programs, set up the chairs, had nice pictures around, verified that everyone would be there, brought a change of clothes, and even remembered the dry underwear. It was all going to go smoothly, right?

Papa preformed the Baptism. The picture on the right is my favorite!

I have to document this or we may forget details, although I doubt it will be soon forgotten. The following account is from my own perspective and it may have been different for someone else. If you were there and want to comment to share your perspective on the events, that would be great, thanks!

Spencer got into the font and as my dad said the baptismal prayer he said, "... of the Father, and (he took a breath in) the Son, and of the Holy Ghost..." I did not know if he had said "of" where he took the breath or not. He put Spencer under the water and EVERYTHING was covered. They got out of the font and pulled the plug and went into the bathroom and started to change. As everyone filed back into the other room, my Brother-in-law says, "isn't it 'of the Son'?" Yes, it is. So he hadn't actually said it right. I took most of guests back into the other room and they were going to get Spencer and Papa back into the font to do it again without everyone watching. The problem was this... the water drains very quickly. It takes 2+ hours to fill the font, but only about 10 minutes to drain it completely. By the time they got back into the font and put the plug back in, there was only about 1.5 feet of water in the bottom. Dad said the prayer and tried to baptize him but he couldn't make it all the way under. So they tried 3 or 4 more times with no luck. They added more water to the font. By this time, almost all of the guests were back in the hallway watching - talk about pressure! They tried 3 or 4 more times with no luck and again added some water. At this point Spencer had a foot come up twice, a leg once, a forehead, an arm, and I'm sure I'm missing a few. I was watching from the side and saw my oldest son's face. He looked exhausted and frustrated. He looked up and I thought he was going to cry. He said, "We'll try one more time and then stop..." At this point, I thought, "oh, no! He's giving up!!" Boy was I wrong... He continued... "and then stop and add more water so we can try again." I have never been more proud of my little man. He handled the whole situation with a maturity I had never seen in an 8 year old before! I can't remember if there was only 1 time more or not, just that he was eventually baptized properly. It was a good opportunity to explain to our friends and neighbors who are not members of the church of the importance of performing ordinances perfectly and with exactness. It was a baptism that none of us will soon forget! (Note: No one actually counted, I thought there were at least 8 times, many others thought it was around 8, so we decided it was 8 times total. The counselor from the Bishopric that was in attendance thought it was much more than that, possibly 10-12 times. As BD said, "that's a lot of sins...")

Here are the family members that were in attendance.

Just for a record, Grandma Tarbet gave the opening prayer, Nana Peterson gave the first talk on Baptism, a musical number - "A Child's Prayer" was sung by Trisha Snow (the Primary Chorister, my Visiting Teacher, and Spencer's former tutor) and Jill Barnes (Spencer's Primary teacher), Papa Peterson baptized Spencer, Dave and Grandpa Tarbet were witnesses, Grandpa Tarbet gave the talk on the Holy Ghost, and Dave confirmed Spencer, and then we had welcomes from Emily Allred (Primary President) and Randy Christensen (from the Bishopric), Jaclyn Peterson gave the closing prayer. The music was led by Heather Ure (Spencer's Primary teacher) and Brother and Sister Allred took turns playing the piano. The opening song was "I am a Child of God" and the closing song was "If the Savior Stood Beside Me." It was a nice service and we are grateful to all who came and all who participated!

Here are some pictures of Spencer in his new suit. No, they aren't great, he was not in a smiling mood when I took them. I had to bribe him to smile in the last picture.

"Happy Martin Luther King Day!" AND Sleepy Girl AND The Party

On Monday, January 18, 2010 I woke up to find that the boys were awake downstairs doing something. They heard me get up and ran upstairs to tell me that I couldn't come down yet. I told them I would take a shower and first and they seemed happy with that. Later, when I came out of the bathroom, I found this:

and these cute boys yelled, "Happy Martin Luther King Day!!!!"

I came downstairs and found that in addition to making the cinnamon toast for me they had also cleaned up the family room and vacuumed it! As I thanked them for their great surprise Spencer said, "We only clean up on Birthdays and Holidays, that's why we don't clean up any other day."
Later that week, Tayla fell asleep in her high chair for the first time. Since this is one of my favorite kid occurrences (falling asleep anywhere, anytime) I took a picture and included it here:

Spencer was not feeling well and had a plethora of symptoms during the week leading up to his 8th Birthday. He started exactly 1 week before feeling nauseous and being very tired. Then the next day he woke up with a terrible cough, then the next day he seemed fine but still had a lessor version of his cough. Then the on Tuesday, just when I thought he would go to school, he woke up at 4:30am with diarrhea. Couldn't send him to school. Tuesday night, he had a slight fever, so not allowed to go to school. Wednesday he woke up fever free and I called the school and said, "he should be there tomorrow." Wednesday afternoon the fever came back, but worse. Thursday I took him to the doctor to find out that he had pneumonia but that he was not at all contagious. I had him rest all day Thursday and Friday I sent him to school with a note to not let him go outside and not to let him run around at all. I figured he could sit in a chair here all day or sit in a chair there all day. I also came into the school at about 11am to check on him to make sure he was not too tired. He was doing fine and seemed happy to be back at school. Friday after school we headed strait to Pump It Up for his Birthday party. He had personal rules about not running around, not working up a sweat and not breathing heavily. He did pretty good at taking breaks and taking it easy. He seemed to have fun and I am glad we decided to do it.
This is Spencer in the white shirt, they gave him one with his name on the back.

They even had some soft blocks for Tayla to play with - she loved it!!

The whole group of kids, so glad I didn't have this group at my house that day:

Spencer in his throne:

The cake: I wasn't paying attention and bought trick candles, normally not a problem, but to a boy with pneumonia, it made it almost impossible for him to blow them out in the first place, but to have them relight was very frustrating! I'm soooo sorry!!

Overall, I think it was a fun week. The weekend was just as amazing! (see next post)

December...

Kid fun, getting a tree, big snow storms, and CHRISTMAS!!!! Woohoo!!!

November...

Nothing really exciting happened in November...
Let's see... Paige and Matt got sealed to their adopted daughter, Andrea got married, and we went to Disney World. That's all.

Seeing Paige be sealed to A.N. made me sooo happy, it was truly a sweet experience for me! I feel completely blessed to have witnessed it.

ANDREA GOT MARRIED!!! I will never forget how absolutely incredible she looked that day. We are excited to have B as part of the family!! (they have asked that I blur their faces)

I'm not sure who I stole these pictures from, they came from 1 of the following places: Jac's Blog, Paige's Blog, Briette's Blog, or from one of those people's facebook albums. Sorry, I stole them so long ago I don't remember.

We also went to Orlando with all of Dave's family. What a great time! We had some interesting things happen like losing Carter on Monday, leaving Spencer locked in the van in the parking lot at the hotel on Tuesday, having Miana leave the hotel room at 4 in the morning by herself and having her returned by hotel security at 4:45 and the police coming a 1/2 hour after that.

I promise that my children are well cared for. With Carter, we were trying to find a place to get a family picture at Disney's Animal Kingdom. He stopped to look at a kangeroo and we all kept walking. He turned around and we were gone. He went looking for us and when he couldn't find us, he went to a park worker and described me, giving my name and EXACTLY what I was wearing. He was very calm and we found him in a matter of minutes. The park worker praised him and said that they get lost kids all the time and they either don't talk or can't describe their parents at all. She said he was great. After I was done being worried out of my mind and after I was done being angry at him for not listening, I eventually was proud of him.

With Spencer, we all got out of the car, I thought one door was open on the other side, he stayed in the van writing in his journal. took the baby and went to the elevator, Dave was close behind and he hit the lock on the van. As the elevator closed, we heard the alarm go off on the van. We got up to our floor and noticed that Spencer wasn't with us (please keep in mind that we had at least 12 people in the elevator.) He came up on the next elevator and was mad at us for leaving him. As soon as I was done be worried and as soon as I was done being angry at him for not listening, I was proud that he was smart enough and observant enough to know which floor we were on.

With Miana, we were in a 3 bedroom unit (1 bedroom connected to a 2 bedroom suite, with an entry way connecting the 2 sides). We tried being on the 1 bedroom side and having the baby in with us but we kept waking her up and she was too loud and kept waking the kids up. We tried different configurations and finally, the only way to have the baby in a room by herself, have us hear her but not have the kids hear her in the middle of the night was for us to be on the 2 bedroom side and but the 3 older kids together on the 1 bedroom side, with the doors unlocked and open between us. We locked the outside door but it didn't have a top lock, just the bottom hotel lock that unlocks as soon as you twist it. When Miana fell asleep that night, she said she wanted to see Grandma, we told her she could see Grandma in the morning. Apparently, she woke up sometime around 4am and left to go down to Grandma's door. Grandma's door was locked (of course) and she didn't know what to do. She was outside in her PJs crying, walking up and down the walkway. Another guest heard her and brought her into their room and called hotel security to help find her parents. Of course, we were totally asleep and did not hear the front door open when Miana left. The hotel security lady said that she just had a feeling that she should knock on Vivian's door. She did and we got Miana back safe and sound. After that, we all slept on the same side of the unit with the inside door shut, with the top locked, and we would put 2 heavy chairs in front of the door, so that not even Dave and I could get out without waking everyone up. It was a scary experience!!

Here is the slide show of pictures from the trip:

October

October 9th we let the kids skip school to go to the Maryland Science Museum in Baltimore's inner harbor. The kids had a blast because everything was "hands on!"
Dinosaurs, excavating, and making dinosaur tracks...

Marble track, astronauts, and playing with water...



Carter walking on the moon and the kids sitting on a giant anchor at the Inner Harbor...

October 12 was a day off of school, Dave was out of town, AND it was my Birthday. I celebrated by having cake, pie, & cake. Spencer gave me a card, made dinner for everyone, cleaned up the family room, and took parts (wires, antennas, etc.) from several different toys, taped them together in an attempt to receive signals from satelites. Here are some pictures of his creation:

This day Miana just looked so cute taking Carter to the bus stop, I had to grab my camera and take pictures of her...

Carter and Miana decided to play in the dryer one day, don't worry, they were not in danger - I was there and they were only in there for a minute or so before I made them get out - I was worried they would break it.

Halloween came and the kids were super heroes, we had Bumble Bee and Optimus Prime, Wonder Woman, and a Tootsie Roll (yes, a super hero - saving the world from hunger)...

October was a great month for us!!

Slide show of Tayla (and a few Miana and Carter) - September

It's still January, I'm still doing one post a month, right? Blame Facebook.

I have recently been reminded that I suck. It's true (that I've been reminded, not that I suck - that is actually in debate.) My husband has been reminding me, frequently, that I am not good at housework, cooking, or focussing. He does most of the reminding in a teasing form, but occassionally it comes out in a serious comment. I spoke to my Brother-in-law this week on the phone and told him that I would post pictures of Spencer's baptism (which was yesterday) here on my blog. He said, "so we can expect to see the pictures in June?" hmmm... he has a point, I was once again reminded that I have been less then fantastic at remembering to post things here - I blame Facebook. I have limited time to spend on the computer (contrary to popular belief, I do not actually sit here all day long) so I usually spend that time checking email, posting a quick status update to FB and then my final few minutes are spent playing a silly, but highly addictive game of Farmville. I have some time now, my crops are doing well, and so I am here ready to post. Let's see where did I leave off...