Luke's Baptism

Luke was baptized on Saturday, and we were blessed to have my parents and nephew come to share the day with him.

He had a great day, and didn't even have to get dunked twice. We had a fun time with Grandma and Grandpa Bake. We had Luke's favorite for lunch, taco soup, and an ice cream cake. We had the Hancocks join us, too, and were so glad to have friends and family for his special day.

Can My Real Name Be Luke Skywalker 2?

A couple of days ago, Tanner asked me if his real name could be Luke Skywalker 2 and his pretend name be Tanner. I said yes, and unfortunately for me, he took me seriously. All I have heard since is, "Mom, my real name is Luke Skywalker 2, not Tanner." Well, today I had to tell him that I was just kidding, that he could pretend his real name was Luke Skywalker 2, but his really real name was Tanner. He was quite upset because, "You told me on church day that my real name could be Luke Skywalker 2." So, now I am in the doghouse because I lied, and he keeps reminding me that he IS Luke Skywalker 2. As you can see from the pictures below, he is also, "Won't make a normal face when mom takes a picture boy." He asks to see any picture I take, and if it looks normal, he asks me to take it again, and he makes a nutty face. He makes me laugh so much.

TA

Long ago, and very far from here, my husband was introduced to a game called Total Annihilation, or TA. When we were in school at Moscow, ID, he and a friend name David used to play quite often. He and David would stay up late, jawing back and forth as they played, making armies of robots to destroy one another.

Well, this friend happens to live near to us, and we went to see them for New Year's. David's sons are also TA fans, and have two computers, so while Shane and I visited with David and his wife, the boys played TA. Josh and Luke loved it. They have played before, but never for that long. They were bugging Shane all the way home to set up TA on our computer so they could play. Shane actually already had it, so they started to play. The computer game led to the legos, which led to these pictures:


There are commanders, robots, planes, ultimate Krogoths; you name it, they tried to make it. There are so many things that I can't even remember all their names. They made TA armies to play with when they couldn't play it on the computer. It was so fun to see their creativity flow. I wish I were that creative.

Singing Parker

OK, one more for today, and I'll add some others tomorrow. I found this as I was looking to see what I needed to blog about. Parker is a musical little soul. He has been singing since he figured out how to do it. My favorites are SpongeBob and Madame Blueberry (Veggie Tales). I was able to get some of his singing in this video. I love this kid!!

Snow!

Right before we left for Oregon, we had a wonderful snow storm come through Nebraska. We got about 10-11 inches of snow, and the wind blew, so things were a little drifty. School was canceled for two days, and then we had a late start Wednesday so the plows could clean things up a bit. The two weeks after we left, we had two storms that came through that dumped another 12-20 inches between the two of them, with drifts that were unbelieveable. We got out just in time. The picture you see, with the kids basketball net, was at the beginning of the storm. The things you can see sticking up out of the snow are the trampoline parts, which I forgot about later and had to dig up after the storm had passed so the men could pack them in the truck.

I loved Nebraska, and was sad to leave, but looking at those pictures, and hearing about the storms that hit after we left make me glad to be in a bit more temperate place. =>

Luke's 8th Birthday

So sorry, but apparently I don't have any just pictures of Luke's birthday. A couple of days before Luke's birthday, we had a huge storm in Nebraska that delayed our movers by 2 days. Instead of coming on Tuesday morning to pack, they didn't make it until Wednesday afternoon around 4:30 to start packing. That also happened to be Luke's birthday, so things we in disarray with packing things all over, movers going in and out, and trying to get birthday stuff when my house was in chaos. I guess we were lucky to even get the video. But, Luke had a great birthday, ending up with a Nintendo DS and the accompanying paraphernalia. He loved it, and Josh was kind of sad, until he got his own for Christmas.

Anyway, here is the video, and Luke, we love you very much. You are such a wonderful boy, so full of imagination. We can't imagine our family without you and are so proud of your decision to get baptized this weekend.

Catching Up, Again

Ok. Story of my life lately, catching up. It has been over a month, and tons of stuff has happened. Luke had his 8th birthday, with his baptism still to come this weekend. We had a wild trip half-way across the country, moved to Oregon, and closed on our house, finally! We have had school programs, fun playing outside, Christmas with Grandma Clayson, and missed a snowstorm in Nebraska that was the storm to end all storms. Shane has started a new job, the kids have started at new schools, and I have been trying to find places in the house to store the stuff that we could store in a storage room in Nebraska. Alas, no storage room here. So, lots to talk about, but some will have to wait. I will be posting some stuff from the last little while in the next couple of posts, but in the mean time, here are pictures of my silly kids.