Testimonies

In Primary (LDS Sunday School for kids 3-12) today, Sis. Velasco asked for volunteers for someone very brave to come up and bear impromptu testimonies for part of Opening Exercises in place of talks. No one volunteered.... until finally Avril did. After being thanked for being so brave, she took her seat at the front. Still looking for the second someone, Sis. Velasco again asked for volunteers. This time, Xandri popped up and followed her sister's example. 

After the opening prayer and the reading of this month's scripture, Avril stood to offer her testimony.

She spoke about the the truth of the scriptures & the prophet and then talked briefly about the importance that the Holy Ghost plays in our lives and described him as "Heavenly Father's helper".

Next it was Xandri's turn. 

Without any prompting whatsoever, she began her testimony:

"I know that the Holy Ghost is real and that he's a ghost and that's ok because he's holy and he's not scary and that's good. And I know that he helps us and he's with us."

I stood in the back, (having had no idea what she would say) beaming with pride and laughing in delight of such sweet, pure testimony from the mouth of my babe. 

Then she sat down and burst into tears.

Sis. Velasco had also laughed delightedly, she adores Xandri and loves to hear anything she has to say or watch everything she does. I hadn't noticed, but apparently several of the kids laughed as well. It absolutely broke my heart that this sweet and perfect moment was potentially ruined for my little one, so I gathered her up and we had a little chat while opening exercises continued. I did my best to tell and show her how absolutely proud of her I was and to let her know that people only laughed because they were so happy and delighted with her sweet testimony, not because it was silly or they were making fun. It was so wonderful how perfectly from her heart it was, how unscripted and honest and pure. I think I had her convinced by the end, but I suppose we'll only know for sure when she bears her testimony again. 

Roman Says

"Gibbidit". --old school Roman. He doesn't say this anymore but about six months ago it meant anything from "I'm giving this to you" to "Give it to me" to "Give it to ___"

"I want to carry you."

"I'm too heavy to carry you."

"...huh." (at the end of most sentences.)

"Mom, ih's soggy, huh, Mom." (any food that's been left out long enough to cool off or that he just doesn't want to eat anymore."

"Khajeep."--- what he calls Jeeps. Combination of "Khajiit" (cat person) from the video game Skyrim that we all have created characters on (his is a green Argonian- or lizard man) and "Jeep" which he got to ride in several times when "that guy" and Micaela were here.

"That guy"- Drew, Micaela's hubby.

"Woor"- how he says "your"

"Cars fighting, huh, Mom."  Roman's review of Transformers.

SUPing

Stand Up Paddleboarding.

We love it.

Max's Blessing Day

My littlest boy was given a name and a blessing at church today. He was so handsome and was so good and quiet through it all! The Spirit was so strong in church today, it was truly a blessed day. We were so grateful to have our dear friends Shane and Maggie join us for his blessing, thank you both so much for being our family out here. 

 I absolutely love the little tux on him, it's so perfect. 

Well, except for the collar. His little neck was so fat I couldn't button the top button-- and forget the bowtie!

My little man.

Chillin' with Dad, just waiting to get out of the monkey suit. 

What now?

Does he look more bemused or resigned? I can't decide.  

I am notorious for terrible planning for big events and awful execution. Birthdays, graduations (ahem, sorry again hon...), holidays, anything special, you name it, I blow it. It either goes one of two ways with me generally. I either space out completely and get a whole bunch of great ideas a day or two before with no time to implement any of them or else get great ideas a while in advance, but don't get cracking on 'em right away and then space out until it's too late. 

Well. Max's blessing was no exception. He was scheduled to be blessed a month ago. I had shopped around online and found a pretty darling little blessing outfit-- but didn't order it. I held off because I was worried it would be too big and I thought I could find one on island. And then I forgot and got busy for a while. And then it was two days before the blessing day and I was frantically hitting every store I could think of in the limited time I had to find a blessing outfit I liked that didn't cost an arm and a leg. Finally, in desperation I called a friend to see if she had one to lend. Fortunately she did. They dug it out of the box for me and I brought it home. 

And I was so depressed that I did it again. The whole corner painting thing. It just broke my heart thinking that this is likely the last baby of mine I will see blessed and he'll be wearing a frantically-last-minute-borrowed blessing outfit and not something that his thoughtful and loving mother picked out specially for him.  So I sat there so distressed when it hit me-- he doesn't have to be blessed tomorrow. We could feasibly wait until next month. We didn't have any family arranging schedules or travel plans to account for. 

So we did. We canceled and decided to wait a month so I could have my head together, think of the people that we'd like to be there and invite them and order the blessing outfit I loved, that suited Max and was just for him. And I'm so glad we did. He was a bit short and fat for it, but he looked adorable in it and I felt together and while it wasn't a big to-do afterwards or anything, it was wonderful not feeling frantic and rushed for this important beginning to my baby's life. 

RolyPoly Bug

The Inspiration. 

Tuck and Roll, from A Bug's Life.

I get all sortsa giddy when I look at this kid. He's almost too big to pull it off, though. I mean, look at him, he's all stretched out! I don't see any of that rolypoly-ing going on. That's ok, I'm picturing it. 

Supplies: 

3 sheets dark blue craft foam

black & white acrylic paint mixed to form gray

fabric glue

onesie 

those fancy pipe cleaners

hot glue gun

chunky newborn

A bit blurry, but some of us are incredibly wiggly these days. 

Halloweening

I am seriously on a roll this year. I can't even tell you how many projects I've been working on and FINISHING this month. Well, I could, but let's just stick to the subject at hand.

Because two of those projects are Halloween jar luminaries and bones. Super fun, instead of pumpkins this year (yeah, slacked off on buying them and when I went back they were gone! Sad face.) we painted these jars together. 

Green- Roman, of course.

White- Avril's ghost

Black- Xandri's demon. With red eyes and eyelashes. 

Orange- well, somebody had to do a typical pumpking. I did the honors.

Purple- Derek didn't actually finish putting a face on his. 

The bones were these cool meringue cookies I made for Avril and Xandri to take to school for Halloween treats. And by "I made", I really mean I made the... batter, I guess... and Derek piped them onto the pan in bone shapes while I went to church choir practice. So THANK YOU, dear, for taking care of that for me. So it was a huge bummer the next day when they wouldn't come off the wax paper. Turns out wax paper isn't the same thing as parchment paper. Who knew? 

For trick or treating, we got all sorts of dressed up. Roman was going to go as Optimus Prime and needed a haircut. So we obviously mohawked it. Because Optimus Prime wears a mohawk. Right? 

This picture makes me think he shoulda been a rockstar. 

Nekkid, sittin' on the sink, rubbing... tired? watery? itchy? eyes. It was REALLY HARD to hold still while all that gel dried. REALLY hard. 

Meanwhile, my best spider pizza ever was happily baking in the oven. Gorgeous, isn't she? You can also call her OctaPie. Only it woulda been better if there were two of 'em. Get it? OctaPie? Get it?

Yeah, ok.

Anyway, recipe and directions to follow.

Post trick-or-treating scary faces. We went t-or-ting with our neighbors. I seriously think we were possibly one of two t-or-ting groups in our neighborhood. Seriously. In any case, we LOADED UP. I cannot believe how much candy we got this year. Eeeee.... good thing I scheduled dental appointments for everyone. Preempt it. 

Avril- pirate girl

 Xandri- batgirl (I did both of their makeup and while I actually kind of hated it because it's on little girls and they look soooo much cuter without it, it's getting me super excited to do makeovers on 'em when they really do get old enough to do makeup-- seriously fun!)

Max- Tuck or Roll from A Bug's Life (because babies always remind me of rolypoly bugs when they're new cause when they lay on their tummies they curl up just like 'em--- so cute!)

Roman- Superman (yeah, I know I said Optimus Prime earlier. OP disappeared conveniently five minutes before we needed to head out. Found 30 seconds before we walked out in last year's costume. Oh well, he's definitely gotten a lot of mileage out of OP.) 

me- newsie (Or something. I decided between feeding Max, making spider pizza, picking kids up from school and prepping them for trick-or-treating I likely wouldn't have three hours to spend on my own makeup, so threw together a quick outfit that woulda made more sense if I were carrying around a roll of newspapers instead of a rolypoly bug. Bug's cuter, though.)

Seriously, is this not the cutest thing you've ever seen? (Listen, don't even argue with me, tell me about "your adorable kids" or your cute niece or nephew. Psh. I won't hear it anyway. I'm too busy looking at mine.) I'm pretty proud of myself for solving the costume dilemma since I couldn't find any such costumes online and I rely on the internet to solve all my problems. Nope, this time I got all sorts of creative and did it for about $5. Don't worry, I'll soon be putting up a post dedicated to a bunch more pics of it. Cause I know you want em.