Baptism Day

I can't believe Andrew's already 8 and old enough to be baptized.  Heck, now it's over and we're already looking forward to it being Whitney next.  Boy, time does fly.

We had such a happy boy for his special day.  He planned the whole thing--speakers, songs, who was in his confirmation circle, dessert, what Mormon Messages to show while he was getting changed into his suit, etc, etc.  It all turned out great.

We had a lot of company in for the weekend.  Grandma and Grandpa, Nanny and Papa, and Aunt Megan and Uncle Nate.  It was a party at our house for over a week!  Wonderful.

Here are some post baptism shots.  Papa has a snazzy camera so we let him go to town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A 'serious' attempt at a picture.

 

 

Love you Andrew!

Side Note for Matt

We can't keep talking about Andrew every post, right?  Someone's gonna get jealous.  This time it's Matt.
Matt had a chance to head to D.C. for a quick 36 hours to give a presentation.  What was an added bonus is when he realized his brother Dan would be in D.C. at the same time attending meetings for work.  They haven't seen each other in about 2 1/2 years.  Sweet!

 

Hi Dan!  They went to some awesome Mexican restaurant, Oyamel.  He talked about it for several days.

Here's one of Matt's tacos--a grasshopper taco.  Gross.  He was reliving his days in Mexico but I don't know if he'd do it again.  Next time he'll stick with the chicken.

A Birthday Boy

Andrew is 8.  We don't do birthday parties every year, we rotate party and out to dinner.  This is party year so all the kids are super excited.  Andrew decided on a Minute to Win It birthday party.  We had a ton of fun.  I think it was one of the easiest and most fun parties I've ever thrown.

The cakes were non-theme related.  He just wanted a cake that he could put Lego mini-figures on.  We settled on Lego bricks.  Also easy.  Likin' this party.
 

A happy boy with his cake.

As the boys arrived, we had random skill tests going on like stacking soda cans, milk jug lids, etc.

Then on to the competition.  Below, Andrew is being a cookie unicorn.  For full points, contestants had to stack 7 oreos on their heads.  Andrew is using the lean up against the sofa cheating tactic.

Another round of the competition involved stacking 5 dice on a spoon in your mouth.  Only a few succeeded.

We made towers using marshmallows and toothpicks.  Instead of 1 minute, they got 5 on this one.  We had some pretty fun towers and some obvious 'we don't know how to make a tower' towers.

Here I am demonstrating the Elephant March.  Contestants had to knock over water bottles with their trunks.  Another big hit.

Water transfer--getting water from cup to jar.  One of the quieter moments--loved it.

We had about 8 or 9 competitions and kept track of score on a big score board.  You have to keep score.  8 year old boys are competitive.  Then on to cake and presents.

We ended the party with a tape ball--probably the biggest hit of the evening.  I wrapped candy and fun little toys up in a big ball of packing tape.  Kids had 30 seconds to get whatever out of the ball they could.  When the timer went off, the ball had to get passed.  They played for over 20 minutes and we didn't even get everything out of it.  Very fun.

A happy birthday boy.
We are lucky to have such an awesome kid in the family.  Love you Andrew.

 

Crazy Snow!

March is known for dumb freakish snow storms up here in New England.
We were on the border of the map preditions, right on the line of 3-6 inches and 6-8 inches.  I was thinking we'd get 6 or 7.  We woke up to at least that and then it kept snowing.  Whitney's yardstick is showing 19". It actually got up to like 22 inches before it finally stopped.  Once it stopped and turned rainy, the snow condensed and got very heavy.  Within 2 days it was like 60 degrees.  CT weather is so weird.
  

There's a Cub Scout in the House

I see I'm about 6 weeks behind on life, and life has happened to be pretty busy!
Lots of big things for our boy in the past month.  Andrew turned 8!  Just 2 weeks before his birthday was the Blue and Gold Banquet.  His scout troop let him come a few weeks early and participate with his troop in the skits.  We have one happy cub scout.

 

Earning his Bobcat.  The fastest badge ever to earn.
Fun times ahead.

A Dose of Random

And this will conclude my blog catch up.  Here's some random odds and ends wrapping up and getting things up to date!

My post-storm Sunday.  Matt went to church with Mary and Andrew.  Whit and Annie slept off and on all morning.  It was Monday we learned they had strep throat.  Such a sad bunch we have been.

With no school Monday or Tuesday, we had more good chances to play in the snow.  Andrew built a great tunnel, but unfortunately by the next morning it was all sunk in.   

Whit's teacher made all the kids paper flowers for Valentine's day.  She came home from school quite a happy girl and has been putting it in her hair ever since. :) 

Been working on family history indexing and some of our family history--it's one of my New Year's Resolutions.  Found some missing pieces on my Nan's family line this past week.  Discovered 2 of her great-great-grandmothers' names.  Even realized that her great-great-grandma lived on Paddock Ln in Desborough, England in 1881...the same exact street my nan was born and raised on over 50 years later.  I love family history!!  

The 4th Grade Valentine Dance (daddy/daughter- mother/son) was this past Friday night.  Mary was so excited to go with Matt.  They had a fun time! 

Some pre-dance practicing. :)

And life is officially caught up!

Garage Make-Over

Oh, our garage.  Since we've moved in, there has been a large 2 1/2-3 foot cubed box sticking out the top of the garage wall.  A laundry shoot that was practically inaccessible and never used.  Over Christmas break, Matt busted it out and began the long process of patching it's hole along with multiple other holes, dents, bad taping (or no taping) areas.  The wall was a mess to say the least.

Here's Matt on one of his 'work in the garage all Saturday' fixing things up.  We also had several patch ups in the laundry room (including the in the house part of the horrid laundry shoot).

Once it was all done and sanded (holy dust batman!) and painted, we started putting things back together.  This weekend was the addition of a bike rack.  We need a few more bike hooks to finish it up but I'm so excited for how it's finally looking in the garage!  The work bench is even clean and organized too (that might not last long but it's nice while it lasts).

Pretty!!