Caleb's Blessing Outfit

The Boys

Luke and Joshua wanted me to take some pictures of the brothers. In the picture below, Luke is very excited because he thinks Caleb is kissing him.

Joshua thought it was funny that you can see straight up Caleb's nose, but it was hard holding him and taking pictures.

While I had my camera out, Joshua wanted me to take a picture of his drawing. He drew a castle (his castle) and drew a temple next to it because he wants to live by the temple. He told me when he is older, he wants to live by the temple so that when a tornado comes he can pack up his kids and wife and head to the temple because the Lord wouldn't destroy His temple.

Waiting For Mercedes

Jon Mark met me at the kindergarten concert. He came right when it started. As a result, I had to wait for about 15-20 minutes alone with these rascals. Luke had to pee, Caleb needed to be fed, Hannah wanted to be on my lap. It was an eventful 20 minutes. 

Caleb has been so sweet lately. He doesn't cry as much any more and he is sleeping through the night (fingers crossed). I love that he is sleeping through the night, but there is a part of me that has a difficult time laying him down after our final cuddle at 8:00 pm, because I know our next cuddle won't be until about 5 or 6 in the morning. So, I squeeze him extra tight and kiss his cheeks about a hundred times. He smiles at me a lot and really big. It is so cute!

End of the Year Awards

Mercedes is a kindergarten graduate. She had a great year and had a great teacher. Mrs. Schrieber was amazing. Mercedes loved her. There was a boy in Mercedes class, and upon meeting him, I am certain that he had a crush on Mercedes (she kind of had a crush on him too, but she knows that we don't even tease about having a boyfriend--not until she is 18). 

Anyway, she had a concert and looked very cute on the stage. I wish I was closer to get a better shot of her. She is the one wearing white pants. I asked her what she was supposed to wear and she said that she had to wear a red shirt and jeans. Well, when I pulled out her jeans she absolutely refused to wear them and was very upset about it. She has a mind of her own. When she put on her white pants, she changed her words and told me that she didn't know what kind of pants she had to wear and the white ones would be fine. I never got a notice about it, so I went off of her word. Ummm, she was the only one in white. Oh well. She stands out better in the pictures now.

She had a line to say in the program, "the next two songs are an example of all of our hard work". She did well and did not act nervous at all. The audience chuckled a little when she said it. She still has a different way of speaking. She has been in speech therapy for a year but still has a little of an English accent and a lisp. It makes her sound so cute, but we are trying to correct it before she gets too old. 

This morning we went to an award ceremony for her. She can now count and write past 100, and so she made it into the 100's club. She got a t-shirt.

At the same ceremony, we were a bit surprised that Joshua got an award too. He got the citizenship award for his class. He was surprised as well. He is a great kid. He scores very high on the standardized tests, in fact, he scored 100% on the math portion this past semester. We are proud of each of our children and their hard work.

First Smiles

I read somewhere that the oldest child has many scrapbooks/photo albums. The middle children have significantly less. And that the youngest is lucky to have just a few individual shots and has no albums at all. I refuse to let Caleb be that stereotype. I am trying to keep up with his milestones and record them. Here are some of his first social smiles. Jessica was holding him and he kept smiling again and again. 

This last picture shows his favorite position. He gets A LOT of gas. SO So much gas! It is crazy! He sounds like an adult sometimes. He needs a little help pushing them out, and he is much happier when we help him. We call this, milking the farts. Haha! Sorry if that is too crude. It is funny though.

Hannah Is Two!

This baby girl of mine is 2! She is an adorable little human, who really knows how to be funny!

She is very talented at singing and says, "I love this song!" whenever a song comes on the radio that she likes. She easily picks up a tune and sings in a very animated manner with big eyes and big movements. She likes to spin while she sings. She is still obsessed with the song, Let It Go. 

Her cake was a LOT cuter in the picture I found on the internet. We call this cake a Pinterest Fail. BIG TIME! It is supposed to be a monkey eating a banana, because I call Hannah a Banana Cake. It just looks scary. Any other image you may or may not see is purely coincidental.

I'm not sure what I am doing, but Hannah is saying, "cheese!".

We have recently discovered that Hannah is allergic to milk, so I had a pound cake with strawberries on it for her.

She loved opening presents and kept telling herself, Happy Birthday!

We sure do love this spunky little child of ours. Life wouldn't be complete without her.

Hair Like This

I don't know what to do with this hair. This is how Hannah wakes up after every nap and every morning. She's got crazy bed head!

Random

I don't know when the above picture was taken. I think Caleb was a week old. He barely fits that outfit now. He still looks a lot like Luke. Michelle calls him "not Luke". 

This girl is growing up. That dress was made for her by Mommom a couple of years ago. I think Mercedes was three. She wore it to school today because they were having a parade of costumes. The kids were supposed to dress up like their favorite book character. We found out last minute and I didn't have time to prepare, so I had her wear this dress and tell her teacher that she has a Cinderella book. Mercedes loves this dress still, so she was happy to wear it. She was a little timid when she went to get onto the bus and saw that no one else was dressed up. She was afraid people would make fun of her.

Caleb's Blessing

It's sad... I have a close-up shot of Jazmine in her blessing dress, but I didn't get a picture of Caleb. He fell asleep and so I took his outfit off of him so he wouldn't get to hot in his swaddler. He was blessed in it, however. I will need to put it back on him and take a picture. It was the same outfit that Joshua wore. 

He was blessed on May 3rd in our ward, the Hastings Farms Ward. It was a very nice blessing. I wrote down what I could. It's hard to write super fast, but I think I did a pretty good job. Jon Mark blessed him and my father inlaw blessed Jazmine on the same day/location. Kevin, Courtney, and Jessica were able to come down from Utah for it.

Here is what I wrote down:

-Blessed to have a testimony of Jesus Christ

-His testimony would give him strength and courage

-He will be a source of courage to his siblings as the Savior's second coming approaches

-Blessed to make righteous choices and serve a mission

-Blessed to be guided by the spirit and find a righteous woman who will serve beside him and marry in the temple

-Blessed to be a source of strength and love to his wife and his children

It was a nice day. I also got to share my testimony.