Miriam's Baptism Day

One of the first things on my "to do" list Saturday morning was to arrange the flowers Darin gives me every year on Miriam's birthday. I usually just let him surprise me, but knowing I wanted an arrangement for the baptism I requested rainbow colored flowers from Costco. I was feeling a bit stressed that morning, but this job completely calmed me down (Darin taking over getting the boys ready helped too). Things were going along so smoothly, Miriam was in the dress my Mom had made, and I was just about to do something really special with her hair.

Then.....

We hear Miriam scream.

She runs in with blood all over the front of her dress, more of it coming out of her nose.

Miriam and I panicked but Darin kept his cool. He whisked the dress off her to clean it, I worked to stop the bleeding.

It came down to the wire but I did get the cute hairdo done and we made it on time.

As Caroline Ingalls says "All's well that ends well"

It was a lovely day.

So many friends and family came to be with us. Including a special visit from Uncle Craig. You just never know where he will show up!

Watching Darin baptise and confirm Miriam will be a treasured memory.

I love that man.

I love that girl.

I love my family.

I love Darin's family (which is also my family).

I love our sweet friends.

That all equals a very full heart!

Some little touches that made Miriam's Baptism so Special....

* Miriam wore the baptism dress my Mom made when Madison was baptized.

*I gave Miriam the earrings my parents gave me to be baptized in. tiny gold hearts with a pearl in the middle. I was baptized in them, went through the temple in them, and was married in them. We gave Miriam a golden locket (she adores lockets) with a pearl charm to match them. We will put pictures from her baptism in it.

*Uncle Craig's surprise visit!

*My Uncle Damon was in the Priesthood circle to confirm Miriam. He baptized me when I was 8. The whole circle was special, my two brothers, both Grandpa's, three Uncles (besides my brothers), and some great friends. Talk about a circle of power and love! I loved Darin and M's hug afterward.

*The music. My sister Sarah played, and as always it was beautiful. Our family has been so blessed by her talent. My Mom led the music, and when the kids sang "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus" she held up her Primary Chorister posters of the song so they could sing all the verses.

*My friend Diedre helped me decorate water bottles with the rainbow theme we had going on. We were playing off the line from a baptism song "I often look for rainbows whenever there is rain...". We tied little bags of rainbow candy to the water.

*Our friends, we have been blessed with such great friends.

*Mark's talk on baptism. He spoke of the promise Miriam was making to "bear one another's burdens, that they may be light...mourn with those that mourn...comfort those that stand in need of comfort" (Mosiah 18:8-10). He read the primary song "I'll Walk With You" which is such a touching song.

*Cristin's sweet talk on receiving the Holy Ghost. She was very emotional which just made it more sweet. She made her talk so personal, bringing in Miriam's middle name Love.

*The book of remembrance that all the guests wrote in while Miriam was getting dressed.

*Miriam's gratitude. She cried that night, a bit overwhelmed I think with the gifts and the kindness everyone had shown her. She thanked Darin and I many times.

Such a sweet girl!

I told her this is it....8 is as far as I will go, no more growing up.

Our Groundhog's Day!

The birthday girl didn't want pancakes, she wanted to MAKE pancakes.

First birthday gift: Pancake flipping lessons from Mom

(not bad for her first time....not bad at all)

Checked in on Punxsutawney Phil and didn't mind at all his prediction of 6 more weeks of winter. It hasn't really felt like winter has come in the first place!

We sent her off to school with a non-homemade treat.

We couldn't help but add a homemade embellishment.

No calls or emails from the school so it looks like we got away with it!

Picked her up at 11:15 to give her medicine for her awful cough and take her blindfolded to Kneaders.

For a birthday cannoli!

The boys were pleased with this as well.

Mimi came home to darling cards from both sets of Grandparents, and then was wisked off to ballet class.

She came home to see the cake we had been hiding from her.

Chocolate Mousse from Costco, she said she wanted anything chocolate so I got the cake I had wanted on my birthday but couldn't find.

Sweet fancy Moses that is one great cake.

A tradition has been born.

She must have some big wish because she blew with all her might!

She opened the gifts from us, and then we played 4 rounds of hilarious family hide-and-go-seek.

We have an 8 year old!

It's great to be. . .

It's great to be almost 8.

This is Miriam's big week.

A big special birthday has fallen into a pretty exciting week in it's own right.

M is the star student at school this week. Because it's end of term it's early out everyday!

That's not a bad start, but that's not all......

Our last pre-baptism FHE was on testimony.

The lesson itself was not stellar. Soren was in bad form, and we are all sick with awful chest colds (Miriam being the worst unfortunately). We did get through the lesson..not the grand teaching moment I was hoping for but maybe something will stick in their little brains??

But....we did make some yummy breadsticks with honey butter.

Miriam and two friends spent last weekend choreographing a dance routine for their class talent show Monday morning. M's teacher reported that she was blown away with what the girls had come up with. Miriam had a blast (even with the hacking cough)

That afternoon there were surprises in the mail from G'ma Cheryl.

Groundhog Day books for all and a special gift for Miriam.

She colored it that night and begged me to get it washed and ready for her pillow.

Tonight was SEP's. Glowing reports from her teacher, and Miriam showed me all the cute class projects they have been working on. The art entries from the school art show are hanging around the school halls. So fun to peruse the creativity!

The icing on the cake!

With sprinkles!

Even more sprinkles!!

(That's M on the left in another student's entry)

More to come....it's only Tuesday.

Date Night

(Thanks for the tickets Arthur!)

oooh I forgot...

Long ago....before Christmas, before Thanksgiving even, we made a working trip to visit Darin's parents. Our main gift to my parents this year was a ton of homemade soap, so that was priority #1.

Soap making requires math.

Blah, but it's worth it.

We made Elements of Bamboo which is a mixture of earthy scents, peppermint "wake up" soap, and a citrus essential oil blend.

My father-in-law made all these fancy smancy soap cutters.

This is the fun part.

The whole room smells great and the slicing is therapeutic. One of those tasks that you can do while watching a movie or talking to someone....but you have something tangible accomplished at the end.

Grandpa helped Miriam make a few more glass pendents.

Darin, Miriam, and Grandpa worked together to make this cute basket.

Basket weaving is tougher than we thought, it took a team effort. More effort from then men, more watching from Miriam.

Little Byron wasn't really interested in the soap and basket weaving, a bit too young for the glass so Grandpa promised that next visit Bub would get to do something fun.

(so nice since Bub's new favorite phrase is "That's not fa-ow")

True to his word, over Christmas break Grandpa got out some fossils for Byron to inspect with his new magnifying glass. Bub is still talking about petrified Dinosaur gizzards.

I feel so blessed to be able to glean knowledge from my in-laws.

So grateful my kids have Grandparents they can look up to.

January Days

Darin puts together a monthly newsletter for his family. All his siblings and parents email an update and he compiles them all, along with birthdays, anniversaries and such, then sends it to everyone in the family.

So this month as we were writing our family stuff, he asked me what I wanted to report about myself.

I was stumped.

I didn't have anything to say.

I have done things.... thoroughly cleaned the oven with homemade green cleaners and lots of elbow grease for one....cleaned two window blinds one slat at a time for another....but nothing really newsletter worthy.

So I have been thinking about it all month, mentally making note of what I have been doing, and here it is (for your enjoyment), in no particular order.

I have thrown away a candy zoo, and ninja house bit by bit in a sneaky fashion so the kids didn't even notice when they were gone.

I resisted the urge to spend $1.50 per card for gorgeous letter pressed baptism announcements, and made homemade ones myself (with computer help from Darin). I put a picture of Miriam on them so they would be gorgeous no matter what.

I made a birth to 1 year scrapbook in 3 days for Soren when Shutterfly was offering a free 8X8 book. I shuffled through lots of pictures, and then cried a bit (and a bit more) as I remembered my kids looking like this:

I've written this before but I have to say it again. I love who they are, but I miss who they were!

We've had 3 out of the 4 Baptism prep Family Home Evenings before Miriam's special day.

Faith, Repentance, and this week - Baptism. We ended this weeks lesson and game with a "Dunk Party" featuring Oreos and milk (idea from my friend Diedre). Darin stole one of Soren's cookies and then magically pulled it out of his ear. Soren may really believe that pennies, pearls, and cookies can be pulled out of his head.

I have been reviewing East of Eden for this month's book club. I read The Christmas Experiment (which has a little blurb about my in-laws in it!). I'll need to re-read that one in September. I just started Moon Over Manifest because my sweet sister-in-law lent me a copy.

I haven't made any New Years resolutions (other than the ongoing ones) but I did discover my word for the year.

Buck

Have you seen that documentary? Cried my eyes out. I want to parent the way Buck trains horses. My favorite quote from the movie:

"Some say they are too old when they are 40 but I say....."shut up".

It was something like that anyway.

Then of course laundry on Mondays, bathrooms on Tuesday etc. etc.

Piano practice, reading, sounding out words, Sesame Street etc. etc.

Breakfasts, lunches, dinners, too many snacks.

Downton Abby, hate to admit this but Say Yes to the Dress, Pinterest, blogs, and the month is now, unbelievably, half over.

Ringing in 2012

I had low expectations for this year at the cabin.

The New Years of my youth and young adulthood (actually up until having children) were always hilarious, exciting and full of adrenaline rushes. We would create huge sledding hills with jumps. We would night sled down the roads and snowmobile all the way to the top. We would go on long snowmobile rides to the top of the mountains where my dad would make us ride off jumps. Back at the cabin we would eat tons of food (always fondue and wontons) and play games until midnight. Then there were fireworks, or running around the cabin barefoot, or one final group ride down a sledding hill.

The next day we would all sleep in.

Then the kids came along and it was still fun, but much more work to have that fun. Sometimes staying up till midnight was out of the question, especially if one of the babies had cried the whole night before keeping the whole cabin awake. The more kids born, the more work it has become. We stopped playing games, stopped making huge sledding hills, spending all our time on tiny hills helping the kids go up and down over and over.

It is still fun watching the kids have fun, but more work for us to have fun and honestly, sometimes I was too tired to put any effort into my own excitement.

I haven't slept in for 7 years.

I have had to lower my expectations.

So here we are at 2011 and the snowfall is subpar. I was imagining how awful it was going to be stuck in a small cabin with all those people without the snow to entertain (even though I dearly love all "those people")...kids fighting, loud movies always playing, not sleeping well. But I knew I had to go because the kids LOVE it. It's one of their favorite traditions.

SURPRISE!!

It ended up being a New Years reminiscent of my youth!

There was just enough crusty snow for the kids to sled on.

Most of the kids are old enough to play real games!

Everyone slept well the night before so all the adults were happy.

It was a perfect example of the Danish Happiness Study. I expected so little, I was blow away by how fun and exciting it was.

New Years Eve Day the kids, and my Dad sled down the subdivision roads all the way to the frozen lake. Darin and I drove down.

Will you be doing this when you are 61??

We walked/slid all the way across the lake to the island.

Most of us walked.

There were a few big holes of open water. Seems dangerous I know, but the ice really was solid. My dad told us stories of hearing the lake crack from one edge to the other. We could see where that had happened but it didn't while we were out...which was relieving and disappointing.

The middle littles stayed home and sled the entire time.

They are old enough to be outside alone and can walk themselves up the sledding hill.

Hallelujah!

(Notice Bub's eye, he was in a accident with a snowmobile...in that he sled into a stationary snowmobile)

Soren loved sledding! My Dad even sent him down alone a few times.

He was all for the action, never wanting to be left out.

That evening Sarah gave us girls a "clubbing makeup" for the festivities.

Julia and I pose for our facebook profiles.

(Doesn't every tween and teen have this exact photo on facebook...sans my crazy eyes, sexy just doesn't come naturally to me)

See what I mean?

Who cares about sexy when you have the cutest kids in the world to mother.

We played Minute to Win It.

Tons of fun and laughter ensued!

The oreo was my favorite.

On to the fondue and wontons!

The middle littles and babies went to sleep so the rest of us played games.

It is so fun to play big people games!!

At 11:30 we got ready.

Hats? check Sparklers? check Noisemakers? check Huge firework display? double check

My brother-in-law Jared timed the fireworks perfectly, the first boom went off at midnight.

Darin grabbed me for a kiss.

Lots of screaming and laughter.

Jared jumped out of the bushes and scared the pants off Sarah and Julia, it was all hilarious.

and beautiful!

My mom had the Martinelli's ready when we got back to toast in 2012.

And there we have it folks.

The Danes are on to something.