We don't need a baby blessing to realize just how blessed we are,
but. . .
it certainly doesn't hurt.
We had such a wonderful weekend last week as we blessed our little man.
(I gave Austin the choice of having Chase wear a new tie I had or
the one that I made Austin on his blessing day.
Austin wanted Chase to wear his, I thought it was pretty cute. Austin sure loves his brother)
We were very blessed to have Grammy, Papa and Uncle Kevin
come visit for the first time and be a part of Chase's big day.
(Thanks for driving down, we love you guys!)
Jared gave Chase a beautiful blessing.
Truth be told, he did make my heart skip a beat when he blessed Chase that he'll always be close to his brothers and sisters.
Jared said it was just a slip of the tongue,
I guess we'll have to see if Heavenly Father holds you to your plurals in prayers.
Chase was blessed with some quality one on one time with each of them.
He flirted away with Grammy and they became fast friends.
Hard to believe that these two are 80 years apart.
We decided that if we gave Papa a binky and Chase some glasses
they could be twinsies.
Chase loves his Grammy and I was especially grateful for her willingness to hold him Sunday morning as I tried to get all 3 kids dressed and fed and all of us to the the church by 9am
(really 8am thanks to daylight savings-ugh!)
We were blessed to squeeze some
San Diego play time in too.
We had a picnic, watched some seals, flew kites at the beach,
panned for gold at the Mormon Battalion
and enjoyed a mariachi band at dinner in Old Town.
The kids were also blessed to have some much needed
Dean family cousin play time with these cute kiddies
(you were missed Cosette!)
Blessed to have Ammon in town so we had an excuse to go to In-N-Out
I was blessed with some time with my sister
and was secretly thrilled when her flight going home was full
and I could spend a couple more hours with her and my mom;
chatting it up while chowing on cookie dough in my mom's kitchen.
That's the best.
Blessed that Gramma's house is so fun and exciting
...and perhaps slightly dangerous in an exhilarating kind of way
Blessed with cute kids who LOVE their new brother.
Blessed to have the love and support of all our family
from those who could be there
to those who couldn't but would if they could.
We had a really fun lunch after church that day with
my family (thanks for coming Brandon and Malufaus),
Grammy, Papa, Kev and Jared's brother Mike and Christina.
It was so great to have family there to celebrate this great day.
(here's Chase with the after church blues,
pleading with Gramma to get his mom to stop taking picture
and take him home so he can EAT)
Most of all, we feel very, very blessed to have this little man in our family.
It was a rough little start but we are so happy to have him home with us.
How blessed we are to know that our little growing family
is an eternal one where we can be together forever.
Lovin' the half gallon of red food dye we used that day, including breakfast
(appetizing isn't it??)
...and lunch
(Yes, Avery is our "granola girl" who eats Indian flat bread
instead of a regular pb&j sandwich.
Where did we go wrong?)
...and fancy V-Day dinner
(oops-to lazy to grab the camera on that one)
Lovin' our beautiful V-Day hike 5 minutes from our house
(who knew?!)
Lovin' them home-made Valentines
...but maybe not the clean up.
(You try cleaning up a million spilled sparkly confetti hearts. They were on the bottom of our socks, stuck to poor Chase and to our clothes for weeks afterwards)
Lovin' the hotel and the POOL that Jared whisked us away to
after kidnapping us all for a surprise weekend away.
The kids especially loved their "fancy" hide-away bed
and having a room (and tv!) to themselves.
(My sly little cupid packed everything in secret,
remembering everything from the Martinelli to all of our swimsuits.
Very impressive.)
Lovin' our day at Sea World during our weekend getaway
Lovin' that this little guy has proven himself a TRUE Bunker
by maintaining the true spirit of the holiday
and coming down with PINK eye just for the occassion. Atta boy!!
Lovin' findingthis Valentine's morning during breakfast
(remember our Valentine's Day 2009 ice cream heart?!)
most of all-
Lovin' this guy and these kidlets
for so many, many, many wonderfully lovely reasons
We recently celebrated the Mormon Battalion Commemoration down at Old Town. It was such a beautiful San Diego day and all the little activities in the common were a blast for the kids.
Even though we dressed up and looked the part and even participated in the parade, there are a few dead give aways that we're not "real" pioneer stock.
# 10- The rope that the kids made was later used not only to play "ninja" but was also an instrumental prop in one of Avery's story-lines as it suspended "butterfly" Barbie up from the barbie house rafters.
#9- The kids kept referring to these biscuits as "marshmallows." Proof that the only real outdoor cooking exposure they get is making s'mores at the beach.
#8- Austin insisted on checking out the "bomb" that would go off every hour. The closest thing that he could associate with an actual cannon was the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at Disneyland.
#7- Though Avery did surprisingly well (better than many of us adults who tried) with her first feather plume pen writing experience, all of the hours she's logged with twistable crayons, crayola markers, glitter glue pens and mechanical pencils left her a bit ill-prepared to handle such a sensitive writing implement.
#6- Austin refused to wear the leather hat for the event yet happily complied to strap on his camouflage canteen once Gramma filled it up with raspberry lemonade. Yeah that whole drinking from bug infested swamp water bit?? Never would have happened. Forget dying from consumption, dysentery or a snake bite, we'd probably all be dead from dehydration alone without our lemonade.
#5- Even though my brother Taylor (on the stage to the right) was picked to be in the Color Guard and hold the US flag and did a great job, I'm pretty sure a real battalion member wasn't wearing size 12 Airwalks at the time.
#4- Austin thought the other pioneer games were "boring" and in the absence of an iTouch to play games on, became obsessed with playing this marble game instead.
#3- Though we drove down in a fully air-conditioned car, parked right out front, walked straight in and joined the parade, the kids STILL pooped out before finishing the 2nd lap of the 500 meter parade. Back in the day, we wouldn't have made it outside of the Fort Levenworth after getting supplies before the kiddies would be "so tired" and wanting to hitch a ride in the wagon.
(Best part was a woman walking next to me who saw Chase and kept telling my how "amazing" I was and asking if I was okay or needed any water. It made me wonder if she actually thought I had just birthed him in a patch of grass coming across the plains for real.)
#2- There's a true story of a little boy who wanted to accompany his dad in the battalion and walked on his own for 8 days before he caught up with the company. My little son would have done exactly the same. . .as long as he was promised a cool gun to hold, had a pocket full of fruit snacks, a sippy cup of hot chocolate, and if it was only a 7 minute walk (that might even be pushing it too) on a nice sunny day with the promise of ice cream or a park play date at the end. This little man didn't even make it the 1 lap around with all the kids before bailing and trotting across the center back to his marble game. My little soldier!
#1- The biggest give away that we wouldn't last a day in pioneer shoes? After devouring the backpack's worth of snacks we brought and hitting up the biscuit station multiple times, we were still "STARVING" and headed straight to Costco afterwards to eat our fill of hotdogs, pizza slices and knock down a couple chocolate ice cream bars while we were at it and then going inside to buy our weekly cache of 6 gallons of milk, 3 lbs of cheese, breads and bagels and 2 dozen eggs. Too bad they were fresh out of hard tack. Dang!
