St. Patrick's Day

 It's-gotta-be-quick-Sunday-morning-breakfast...

In our somewhat green church clothes... lucky to have this crew.

 Weston wasn't cooperating to be in the picture with the rest of them, so I snagged him and ended up with a cute picture of him and me.  Savannah had a blow-out right after this, so I snapped a quick head shot of her before the dress came off.

Dinner (with a guest)...   

The stew actually turned out really yummy.  We also had green beans.  The pie was supposed to be lime, but the lime juice was expired (yucky brown).  Luckily we have a lemon tree, so we used some fresh lemons!  

our little angel

As I talked about in the previous post, we weren't able to do Savannah's blessing at church.  Usually baby blessings are done on the first Sunday of the month.  The next time we would be able to do that was in May.  As we considered when we would do the blessing, I knew that it would be more special if done with family present.  Since Alex was feeling better on Monday and well enough to do the blessing, we got special permission to do it in our home.  While I was sad that our church family didn't get to witness her blessing, I was so grateful for the opportunity to bless her with my parents there.  It turned out to be a very sweet and sacred thing.  My dad said a prayer, we sang "I am a Child of God", and then Alex gave the blessing.  My dad, a member of the bishopric, and one other ward friend also participated in the blessing. (Here is an additional link if you want to know more about the ordinance.)  

Alex said Savannah was smiling at him during the blessing.  We love our sweet angel.  Alex gave her a name, which she will be known on the records of the church, and a blessing as inspired by the Spirit. A few things that were said were that she has important role to play in our family, that she would be a strength to her brothers, a special mission on this earth, and the opportunity to serve a mission and be married in the temple.

Savannah's first name doesn't have any special significance.  We just thought it was a beautiful name.  Her middle name, Ann, is a family name.  We named her after her great grandmothers on my mom's side, Mary Ann and Ruth Ann.  We actually found out we were expecting Savannah on the day that my Grandpa Bob died.  Mary Ann is Grandpa Bob's wife, our step grandmother technically, but she has always been like flesh and blood to us.  I greatly admire my grandmothers.  Both Ruth Ann and Mary Ann are very strong women, with loving and kind hearts, always willing to serve.  They also both have had some hard trials to endure in this past year and have shown great faith and strength through these trials.  I hope that Savannah will have and develop these qualities as well.  Ann also is significant as it's part of my name and Alex's Aunt's middle name.  Aunt Jane is the last S* girl that was born prior to Savannah.  S* girls don't come along very often!  Aunt Jane also embodies these qualities of service, love, and generosity.  Savannah has some great women that she is named after.  :)    

My mom made Savannah's dress, out of part of my wedding dress.  I love it!       

 

I took so many pictures of Savannah in her dress.  I had a hard time choosing which ones to post.  While I did get some cute grins, I also got several funny expressions, like this one:

and this one:

"Seriously?"    :)

Do you see her legs kicking in this one?

Memorable weekend

Baba, Papa, Mike, Carrie, Ryan, and Nicholas came into town this past weekend for Savannah's baby blessing.  We had a fun day on Saturday going to the zoo, eating dinner, and hanging out.  

Sunday was also memorable, but not in a good way.  Alex had been fighting a staph infection for about a week and a half.  He was almost better, until he started getting a rash on his face on Saturday evening.  He spent a little bit of time out in the sun on Saturday morning, helping Papa build a treehouse.  However, the antibiotics Alex was taking said to avoid being in the sun.  We figured that he had spent too long outside.  By about 1:00am, his face was swollen and red.  The rash had also spread to his back and chest, so he drove himself to the ER.  It turns out that he was having an allergic reaction to the medicine he was taking.  They gave him a shot and hooked him up to an IV for a while.  He called me about 3:00am to let me know what was going on.  I hated that he was over there by himself, but I had to stay at home with the kids.  I sent a text message to my parents at about 3:30am.  My dad drove over to the hospital, just in time to give Alex a ride home (since he couldn't drive for a while).  My dad left the suburban here and then began to walk back to the hospital to get the car.  As soon as I realized that, I went out to find him and give him a ride.  

Alex rested Sunday morning, but wasn't in any state for giving Savannah her blessing at church.  It also turns out that my Mom, Mike, and Carrie got some kind of stomach bug too.  Nicholas had been coughing most of the night.  So Mike and his family headed out right after the 1st hour of church.  I had planned on taking a bunch of pictures of everyone on Sunday after church, but that didn't happen.  So unfortunately I didn't end up with any pictures of all the cousins together or any pictures of Mike and Savannah.  The pictures that Mike shows up in are helping with the treehouse and in the background of one doing the dishes.  I am grateful he was here, quietly helping with whatever needed to be done.  He also came before church on Sunday to help my dad give Alex a blessing.  I guess Mike didn't realize which blessing he was going to be a part of on Sunday morning... it was touching to me to witness the authority of the priesthood in action.  It's a reminder to me of the importance of teaching our boys about the priesthood so they can be worthy to receive that authority later to bless their families. 

I was pretty sad about not being able to do Savannah's blessing at church with family, but we still had a good time on Friday and Saturday.  It was memorable!     

   

My dad worked on a treehouse most of the day on Saturday and on Monday morning.  Mike and Alex also helped on Saturday morning.  The boys were so excited about this treehouse.  As soon as they found out that Papa would be in town, they started talking about him building a treehouse again.  (He built one in our rental house, but we had to take that one down.)  And as soon as Nathan and Jared got home from school on Friday, they came home looking for Papa.  They barely said "hi" to Baba - they wanted to see if Papa was building their treehouse!  It was so cute to see all the boys lined up in their chairs watching them work on the treehouse.  

Thanks Dad for working so hard on it (although it still makes me nervous to see the boys up there).  He didn't quite have time to finish - I think he started on a lower level, but ran out of time.  

Carrie got to hold Savannah quite a bit amidst all the chaos.  Thanks for coming - we'll have to get together again soon!

It was fun to see the boys laughing, and wrestling, and having a good time together.  Sure was LOUD and WILD though!

30 minutes of fun

Nathan and Jared participated in their school jog-a-thon last month.  The laps were supposedly about 1/8 of a mile.  I'm guessing it was a little less.  Nathan did 31 laps and Jared did 26 in 30 minutes.  They far exceeded the goal for their classes.  The goal for the 1st graders was 10 laps and 15 laps for the 3rd graders.  Nathan filled up his whole card (+1).  Both of them did well, jogging almost the whole time.  It looked like they had quite a bit of fun out there.  The highlight was giving fives each time they came around and the treats at the end!  I enjoyed meeting some of their buddies that we hear about.  Nathan has buddy who is also a church and scout friend.  Good job boys!    

pretty in purple and pink!

If you haven't noticed, I kind-of like taking pictures of our pretty girl...

blue & gold

We attended Nathan's blue &gold dinner for scouts a couple weeks ago.  Nathan got 3 beads, which means he completed 9 (of 12) achievements for Wolf.  One of his remaining achievements is to start a collection of at least 10 things and be able to display them in some way.  Any ideas of what a 9 year old boy might like to collect?  He likes to collect Legos, but I'm not sure that counts.  How do you display them?

The other part of the evening was a cake competition, although there wasn't really a winner.  Everyone got a certificate for the "best/most ____ ".  The theme was space exploration.  We got the "most anti-gravity" award for our spaceship.  I was able to help this year.  Last year it was only the dads and scouts doing the cakes.  I put the spaceship together and then the boys help decorate with M&M's and Oreos.  It turned out pretty good, at least quite a bit better than last year's cake.  :)