John's Blessing Day

John's Blessing Day was one of those perfectly wonderful Sundays. We were surrounded by family and friends. It was one of those days where the stresses of life seem to melt away to reveal what is most important. I had a meeting in the morning, and I returned to a home where our oldest two were quietly indulging in creativity on the lower level while Adam gazed at a sleeping baby John upstairs. It was such a sweet father-son moment. Adam spent the morning really preparing for the experience that was to come: that of blessing our sweet little boy. It set such a nice tone for the day. The blessing was a beautiful one. Many family members and friends joined us to celebrate the event.

Here is John getting dressed in his blessing outfit. It is the same one Spencer wore for his blessing. My Grandma Bezzant picked it out when she and I went to shop for my wedding dress. We came upon some beautiful blessing outfits that were on sale; she purchased one for a girl and one for a boy. When my first baby was a boy, she gave me the outfit we had purchased that day, and I look forward to having all my boys wear it.



John in blessing outfit, complete with bonnet and bib. (He wore the bonnet all of 10 seconds...neither he nor his dad particularly like that part of the ensemble).


Our group - again a BIG thank you to everyone who joined us! After church, we continued the celebration with anyone who could stay and had a relaxed turkey dinner back at our house. (That's right...after 7 years being married, I finally stepped up and made my first turkey!! And SOMEHOW I forgot to take a picture of it!)


A family photo taken by Brother Baldwin (thanks!) in the church lobby. Someday we'll manage to get all three kids looking at the camera at the same time. Cute Spencer story: Most Sundays, getting Spencer ready for church is a last-minute affair. He doesn't like to get his nice clothes on until the last possible moment. However, sensing that John's blessing day was a special Sunday, he came down wearing just about every piece of church clothing he could manage: white shirt, yellow tie, blue and red sweater vest, pinstripe jacket, and pants. It was the sweetest thing. If it hadn't been ridiculously hot outside, I think we would have let him keep the outfit intact. As it was, he was okay leaving the sweater vest behind. I love that kid!


It was a busy Sunday. John was an absolute angel baby during the blessing and the festivities that followed. By the end of it, he was one sleepy boy. Thanks for letting us share in your big day, John. It was positively perfect! We are so lucky to have you in our family.

Sarah's Salon

While the boys are away,
The girls will PLAY!

My dad and brother Joel did a lot of scouting this summer. While they were away on high adventure, my sister Sarah organized a salon day at my parent's house. The kiddos and I headed over for a fun day at Grammy's with my mom and sisters. Sarah had the family room totally set up. The foot bath was positioned, pedicure tools set, nail polish displayed, and all the recliners even had towels situated, ready for a relaxed patron to be pampered.


*Sarah gives some AWESOME foot rubs.

Spencer decided he could handle a foot bath, but none of that girly nail polish stuff.


John was happy just hanging out, being held...or being fed. That always makes this baby smile.


Emma, on the other hand, was fully engaged. This is one girl who LOVES to do nails.


She's my very own pretty, pretty princess.

Pizza Picnic at the Fountains

One of our favorite summer activities is to head over to the local town center where once a week there is a live band playing by the fountains that we frequent. The kids play in the water, kick the soccer ball around, and DANCE! To kick off the summer season, we met up with both sides of the family to have a pizza picnic. I am SO, so sad that blogger will not load videos tonight because I have some choice ones of the kids showing off their moves. Those will have to wait for another night, I suppose. Regardless, here are a few snapshots of the fun.

Emma loves to be dipped by her Daddy.


Grandpa was very obliging and took his turn dancing with our Emma.


Spence showing off our dinner. Yum!


Marie and baby John

Mini-Mission Reunion

This has been a summer of reunions. We had a delightful time with the Kenworthy family: Landon, Bridget and their little guy, Dathan. While serving his mission in Argentina, Adam was in the same apartment as Kenworthy (still hard to call him by his first name, since, following mission tradition, Adam usually calls former elders by their surname). We celebrated the reunion by swapping Argentina stories, having a barbecue (as close to an "asado" as we could get), and spending the remainder of the evening at the pool. As a bonus, Bridget taught Spencer some swimming technique (gliding), which set him up for some awesome swimming skills by the end of summer.

Thanks for coming, Kenworthys!

Cunningham Falls

When my mom grew up, she spent the summers with her family at their lakeside cabin in northern California. Lacking quick access to CA, I grew up with my mom making weekly treks to the state parks of nearby Maryland. We'd fill the 15 passenger van with friends, sand toys, and a picnic and head up Rt. 15 for a day of fun.

As a result, I love lakes. I took my kids several times this summer, initially feeling very brave that I would venture such a trip by myself with 3 kids...and now not even remembering what it was like without our little John. He made his first trip to the lake at the ripe old age of 2 months old. As you will see in upcoming posts, he did a respectable amount of traveling this summer. Fortunately, this is one baby that loves snuggling up in a baby bjorn. Unfortunately, it is difficult to get a picture of oneself and one's baby whilst wearing said contraption, and I did not think to ask any of the friends who accompanied us on our lake trips to take one for me.

Here are a few of the "big" kids at the lake.




This photo has my sister Trina, Natalie T (a friend from church), Pascual cousins, and Emma. Spencer was busy building a sand castle, so he didn't join on the train of tubes.


Emma and Spencer on the "beach".


Here is a great blue heron that we have seen several times on our trips. It is a huge, gorgeous bird. If blogger were being more cooperative, I would upload a video we took that shows how close we got to it. As it is, the video upload keeps failing. Ah, technology, our love/hate relationship continues.

4th of July

What a summer we have had...and get ready for a series of posts to document it. The binge blogger has returned!

We celebrated the 4th of July on the 3rd this year with a party in the church parking lot.

There was a water balloon fight that brought out the kid in Adam...


The kids and I had fun pulling out all our red, white, and blue decorating supplies and then taping it all over bikes and scooters. Then the kiddos participated in a bike parade around the parking lot to showcase their handiwork.




I sought out a small bit of shade with Baby John, but we were decked out in our 4th of July finest. Here's a fun photo of us with my awesome friend Amy. She and I had our babies in the same month. Let's give a little shout out to Baby D - John's brother from another mother.

Disneyland

I've decided that the reason Disneyland is the "happiest place on Earth" is because it is all about the family. The rides and environment are family-friendly, and we had a great time exploring the park with a good chunk of the Wride/Barnard clan.

We rode:
Monorail
Finding Nemo Submarine Ride
Peter Pan
Matterhorn
Jungle Cruise
Thunder Mountain (Spencer did this one 4x)
Buzz Lightyear space ranger ride (I think this one was a three-peat for much of our crowd)
Indiana Jones
Tarzan's Treehouse
Teacups
Dumbo
King Arthur's Carousel
Sleeping Beauty Castle Tour
Pinocchio
Space Mountain
Flying Rockets

How did we accomplish so much in one day, you ask? Well, the answer is...17 hours in the park, two teenage fast pass runners, and kids so excited about Disneyland they were willing to run around from 7AM until midnight with just a short break in the afternoon. How did we manage 17 hours in the park? Two REALLY awesome grandparents treated us all to a night at the Disneyland Hotel.

THANK YOU!!!


And...THANK YOU!!!


Since we spent the night on the property, we were able to enter the park an hour early and monorail in, which dropped us off right by the Finding Nemo Submarine Ride. From there, we bounced around, fast-passing this or that, revisiting rides we enjoyed, and working the baby swap. It was SO nice to be able to take the kiddos back to the hotel for a midday repose. Without that, there is no way we would have lasted until midnight. AND...a big shout out to Baby John, who is the best baby in the world when it comes to traveling. He snuggles into the Baby Bjorn and goes with the flow, napping when he needs to, and people-watching when awake.


This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. Emily is demonstrating how excited we ALL were to head to the park. Even though we got in late the night before, it was no problem to get the kids up and ready by 6:30AM.


The first roller coaster of the day: Matterhorn. It was a hit with the kids, despite the scary abominable snowman. Emma likes to talk about him a lot, even though she flatly refused to go on this ride.


Most of the day's cast, waiting for Thunder Mountain (Spencer's favorite ride). Pictured are: Marie, Emily, Spencer, Daniel, Ryan, Maddie, Laura, Alec, Valerie, and Brad. Missing from this photo are: Adam, Emma, John, Tammy, and Tyler.


Our kids were at the PERFECT age for Disneyland. Spencer was old enough for roller coasters; Emma loves princesses; and we have taken all our children to Disneyland while they were infants, so John needed his turn. One perk of Emma's princess adoration...she likes them only from a distance. We saw a few, and she was thrilled about that, but she didn't want to go anywhere near them; thus, we spent no time in line for individual photo ops.


Ryan and Emily on the teacups. Classic!

The rest of the crowd was in the "fast" teacup, with Adam at the wheel.


Daddy explaining the wonders of "Small World" to Emma. This was a definite favorite for lovie.


Twinners!


All of the cousins took turns examining the map and deciding where we should go.


It wouldn't be a ride to Disneyland without riding on Dumbo!



Emma rode the carousel while the boys tried to pull the sword out of the stone. Grandpa helped her stay on and reported later on their conversation. "My horse is a good horse. He is a good horse because his name is Rick." She still talks about good ole Rick.


This picture says it all. We were SO grateful to have a plethora of stroller seats (and people to push them). On the way home, nearly all the kids fell asleep. Spencer is totally zonked out behind Ryan, the lone survivor of the walk back to the hotel. The end of a truly MAGICAL day.