Annie's Baptism Day

Adam, Annie, TJ and Jackson outside the Church!

Last Saturday was a very special day for our family as our Annie Girl was baptized along with her cousin, my sister Julie's son, Jackson. Annie was so excited and has been preparing for this day for a long time. She loves to read her scriptures, teach family home evening lessons, and go to church. A few weeks ago as we were in the midst of planning for this special day I said to her, "Annie, you know that you don't HAVE to be baptized. This is your choice and no one else's. So please tell us if you choose not to be baptized." She was so cute as the expression on her face said it all "mom, are you crazy? OF COURSE I want to be baptized!". What she did say was "mom, I choose that I want to be baptized!". We are so proud of her for making such a righteous choice and doing what her Heavenly Father wants her to do! We are so blessed to be her parents and look at her as such an example of choosing the right!

It was so nice to have everyone who could come be here for the Baptism. On Thursday Papa, Gramma, Granddad, Auntie Heather and Tyler arrived. Then on Friday, Julie, TJ and the kids came in. It was so much fun to be with everyone. The baptism was on Saturday evening. Adam baptized Annie and then TJ baptized Jack. Both Annie and Jackson were simply glowing with excitement and joy! I know that they both felt the spirit and will always remember that special day!

As I was helping Annie change back into her dry clothes, she looked at me with sheer happiness and said "Mom, right now I am clean. I have no sins!". What a wonderful blessing it is to be able to be baptized, as the Savior did, be cleansed from our sins and continue to strive to live righteously so we can return to live with our Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ someday!
Annie and Adam before the baptism
Jack and Annie (looks like a little prom picture pose! :-)
Annie and Adam dressed in their white Baptism clothes.
We are so proud of our little girl!

The day after the Baptism, Julie's sweet baby Girl, Reece was blessed. I love that little baby girl so much! She is soooooo cute and just so fun to love on! She was a little sad the first day she was there but by the time they left on Monday, she and I were friends! I could have held her all day and am so excited that I get to in a few days when we go to "Cago" for Thanksgiving. The little dress Reece wore for her blessing is the same dress that Annie, Natalie and Brooklynn all wore when they were blessed. Nana made it when Annie was born! I LOVE the dress and love seeing my nieces wearing it! I didn't get a picture of Reece wearing the dress since we had to go back to our ward and by the time I returned she was wearing her Broncos jammies. Check out Heather or Julies' blog's to see how beautiful the dress is!

It was a wonderful weekend! Thank you to everyone, grandmas, grandpas, uncles, aunts, cousins and friends who helped make is so special!

Nana and Granddad with the kids!
Papa and Gramma with the kids!
Nana and I found the suits for the boys on sale buy one get one free! Garett has been wanting to wear a suit to church for quite a while now. He put Spencer's old one a few weeks ago. It doesn't fit Spence anymore, but was huge on Garett. He didn't want to take it off so he ended up wearing it to church! This one fits him so well and all my boys look like little Missionaries!! Garett in particular feels quite swish in his suit!
Annie's friends: Megan, Mady and Sloane

Heather and I being goofballs wearing the light up glasses Papa and Gramma brought for the kids!

Finally, some pics of me playing with little Reecey Roo!

Smiley Girl!!
Baby Kisses! (Auntie Jenny's favorite!!)

FIRESTATION, HALLOWEEN, and ANNIE'S BIRTHDAY!

It sure has been awhile since I blogged. I have so much to catch up on! I'll go backwards in sharing what's been going on!

THE FIRESTATION
Today Annie, Papa (who got here today), Logan and I drove around town taking pictures of things in the community for Annie's COMMUNITY PROJECT which is due on Monday. One of the things she needed a picture of was a Community Worker. She wanted a picture of a Firefighter so we drove to the firestation. The firefighters were sooooo nice and more than happy to pose for a picture with the kids! There were 4 or 5 guys there but only one in uniform so he took Logan and Annie out to the Fire Truck, let them sit in it and let them take their pictures! Logan was SOOOO excited as he got much more than he planned for on this little picture taking outing! One guy told Papa that one year he thinks he was in about 35 pictures from all the kids taking pictures for this project! Too funny!






HALLOWEEN
As I love Halloween (sorry to all those of you who hate it) we had another great year! It was a little cold but by far the warmest Halloween we've had since we moved here! It was great! Spencer and his friend Jordan took off before I could get a group picture of all four of my kids together! They cruised the neighborhood on their scooters and got loads of candy. They swear by this new trick or treating method of transportation! Hilarious! Annie, Garett and Logan went out with Adam and our neighbor Scott and his kids! They were out for about an hour and also came home with TONS of candy!

Spencer was Shaggy
Logan was Barney! He LOVES Barney (we're trying to ween him off!)
Garett was Harry Potter QUIDDITCH Player!
Annie was a Colorado Rockies Fan (even though they got destroyed in the World Series she stayed true to her team!)

Last Friday night Adam and I went to a Halloween Party dressed as the SPARTAN Cheerleaders from SNL. We had a ton of fun and always enjoy a great Dress up party!



On Saturday night we had our ward party! I didn't take pictures because I forgot my camera but when you hear my story you'll understand why I forgot it! Here goes:
I had signed up to bring my famous Potato Cheese Soup to the Ward Party (I think it's only famous to those who have ever eaten it but that's what I call it because it is SOOOO yummy!) Anyway, I had to be to the Church early to drop off the soup. Adam had gone to the Rockies game (another sad story) so it was me and the kids! Everything was going along great with the kids in their costumes, soup ready to go and as I finished up Spencer's face paint I called to the kids to get in the car. About a minute later Spencer and heard this BLOOD curdling scream from the garage! After a second of letting the scream register, I knew with 100% assurety that Logan had gotten his fingers slammed in the door of the Suburban! I went sprinting down stairs at the same time as Garett came in screaming that Logan's hand was stuck in the door.
Of course, the terrible mother that I am, I screamed at G "Why didn't you open
the door after it slammed?" G started to cry and I knew it wasn't his fault so I felt SOOOO bad! By the time I got to Logan he had yanked his hand out of the door and was lying on the garage floor in a heap screaming like I've never heard any of my kids scream before, ever. It terrified me! As I took the mitten of his little Barney Costume off his little hand I thought blood would pour out. Thankfully just his skin was wripped off the bottom of his middle finger and his 3 fingers were flat as
pancakes but nothing worse! He screamed for about 30 minutes while I tried to
calm him down. He wanted to go to the Halloween party still and since I had soup
to take we loaded up and headed out. He cried about halfway to the church and
then fell asleep. As I turned the corner into the church parking lot, my crock
pot tipped over (didn't even turn hard) and soup spilled ALL over the front
passenger floor of my car! All of it!! I had just shampooed the carpet 3 days earlier too! It sucked! So now here I was with soup all over my car, a tear streaked purple Barney face kid and I"m 45 minutes late to the Party! Talk about a bad day! It all ended up okay as a guy in our ward checked Logan's fingers out and said he was lucky the mitten was on because it could have cut his fingers off! Thankfully he is fine and just loves to tell the story to everyone!

ANNIE'S 8TH BIRTHDAY
Annie turned 8 a few weeks ago and is going to be Baptized this Saturday with Julie's son Jackson! She is so excited and has seemed sooooo grown up to me the past few weeks! I'm not sure if it is because she is trying to be good for her baptism or if she is just getting older and more mature! Probably a little of both!
For her party, we had a few of her friends over for a sleepover. I think I will win Mother of the Year Award after that as the girls stayed up until past midnight and only went to bed after 4 warnings and a quick lecture from me on the finer points of falling asleep so the mother can go to sleep! :-) It actually turned out to be a fun night for the girls and Annie! I can tell we are at the next level of birthdays because all her presents were clothes, cd's, jewelery, etc. Not one TOY!!! My Baby is Growing up!






I'll blog more after the baptism!!