8 years old and a baptism

Our oldest child is 8 years old.  Time goes by so fast!  Will that ever stop being so crazy to me?  Back in May, Madeleine turned 8.  She had been looking forward to it for a couple reasons.  One was that she was very eager to be baptized.  The other, and maybe what she was most excited for, was that we were letting her get her ears pierced this year.  She got them pierced as a baby but she kept pulling them out so we eventually quit putting them back in.  Then for the past couple years I thought about doing it as part of her birthday gifts, but each of those times it was decided that she had gotten plenty of gifts and didn't need another one.  So this was her lucky year.  And she has not been disappointed.  She counted down the days till she was able to change into different earrings and she still can't wait to wear some dangly ones. 

As you can see, I attempted a barbie cake.  It tasted good, I can say that for certain.  But if Alayna ever wants one in the future I hope I can learn from this experience what I need to do differently to make it a bit prettier.  Madeleine loved it though and since it was delicious it must have been a success.  Don't judge a book by its cover, or something like that, right?

June 16th was the big baptism day.  Her actual birthday fell the day after our ward's regular day for baptizing the kids turning 8, so she got to wait almost a month.  It worked out great though since it made it easier for a family members to come without missing work, etc.

We are so pround of her!  It feels like we are in a different stage of parenthood now that our oldest has been baptized.  Like the issues we are dealing with now and in the years to come are much different (and do I dare say more difficult?) than the things we struggled with when our kids were little.  It's almost like we can't claim to be young parents anymore though I definitely still feel young.  Our kids are older so we must be too, right?  Spencer is 35 now so I guess now we're mid-30's parents.  I don't know.  Just rambling...

Moving on.  My dad came from Mesa.  Thanks, Dad!  It was fun to spend the weekend with him. 

And Spencer's mom came from Oregon.  She stayed for a week and the kids were in heaven!  Truthfully, we all were!  We loved having her here and we really appreciated that she was here with us even though she may have wanted to rush off to see Holly and Mark's newest little one who was born during her stay with us.  Don't worry, she went to be with them when she left Texas.  We're hoping we can figure out a way to get Paul and Sandi to retire wherever we live.  Maybe we need to convince Spencer's siblings and their families to move here too.  It's pretty nice here, guys...come on...who's in??

Blogging again

I'm breaking my blog silence.  It's been long enough, right?  Not that it was intentional.  We had some technical difficulties (broken computer) that was the start of my blog neglect.  Then I got my iPhone.  Do you have one?  Does it make you feel like you almost never need to sit down at the computer ever again??  Well, that's how it is with me.  But no more.  I really like documenting what's going on with us this way so I am vowing to get back into it.

For starters, here are a couple pictures from Madeleine's and Ian's performance in The Sound of Music.  The YMCA has a Performing Arts program that put this on.  For a couple months they went to rehearsal 3 times a week to prepare for the show in May.  They had a good time, but I think they were ready for it to be over.  Three rehearsals a week got to be a lot.  It was for me, too.  I'm glad they got a taste of doing a play.  I'll be interested to see if they have any desire to do that sort of thing as they get older.



Madeleine had two roles: Sister Margaretta (obviously in this picture) and Romy, a made-up Von Trapp daughter who is just younger than Liesl.  They had to create parts to fit the children in the performance.  I think there were 12 or 13 Von Trapp children instead of the usual 7. :)

Ian played Kurt.  He was adorable.  We were originally just going to put Madeleine in the play.  As we discussed it more and more she was leaning toward not doing it at all (which would have been fine) but then Ian asked if he could do it.  He was adamant that he wanted to do it, so Madeleine came around and decided to do it too.

Here's what I liked about it: It got them involved in something cultural and exposed to a wonderful musical.  I love The Sound of Music!  We liked them being busy.  At times I hated how busy we were, but in general it was good for them to be out doing something productive than at home trying to watch too much tv.  Ian is very outgoing and comfortable in most settings, but this challenged Madeleine by getting her out of her comfort zone and they both were able to make new friends.  And the director had lots of good things to say about them.  You always think your kids are pretty great, but it's nice to hear it from an outside source from time to time.

What I didn't like as much was that the performance ended up being a glorified rehearsal.  The director was out on stage some and giving lines a lot.  But I completely understand.  There was one adult in charge, the director.  She had a couple teenage assistants and one mom who was very helpful (not me) and all the children in the play were under 12 years old.  A tough job, I'm sure.  Anyway, overall it was a good experience.

Keep this little blog on your radar because you know after six months not blogging, I've got loads to come!