What happened to my newborn?

The newborn phase is going by way too fast. Marcus is full of so many smiles and giggles. Not to mention all the new rolls he has going for him. Such a joy!!

Blessing

Marcus was blessed January 4, 2009. We were lucky enough to have Spencer visiting us at the time. We also had our friends the Halbrooks who we went to MBA school with who live a few towns north come down for the blessing. Glenn did a great job. We recognize that it really is the priesthood that does the work, but Marcus' blessing revovled around his relationship with the Savior and it was beautiful. What a sweet oportunity we have to bless these young children to help begin their gospel centered lives. He was a good little baby during the blessing and did not cry. Glenn said he made a few little happy noises but that was it. We were blessed to have made good friends out here and have some join us in the blessing. For record keeping sake those involved in the blessing were...Bishop Ure, Brother Thomas (Bishopbric member), David Ware, Sid Basset, and Allen Zimmerman and then of course Spencer and Glenn.
Here are the pictures

One more visitor

We had one more visitor. Last but not least Aunt Laura (Glenn's sister) came to visit before she leaves for her mission to Italy this month. The girls adored her. They read and played and played even more. Unfortunately a few kiddos got sick so we stayed in a bit but we loved catching up with Laura at home.





Laura is always good for making a delicious treat. We went for trifle this time. It was delicious. The girls played games with Laura and as you can see rode her back and enjoyed her willingness to do almost anything with them. Yeah for Aunts!



Miriam just being cute and Rebekah enjoying the necklaces that Grandma and Grandpa White sent out with Aunt Laura.

Uncle Spencer visits

Uncle Spencer visited the week afer Christmas. We loved having him and Glenn loved having someone to watch football with. Thanks for the visit.


We took Spencer to our favorite pizza place here called La Tratorias. The guys loved their Buffalo wing pizza.


Just hanging out and getting to know Marcus. All three boys watched a lot of football.

We blessed Marcus while Spencer was here. I will post more about that later, but here is a picture of the three boys.



After Glenn went back to work Spencer and I took the girls bowling. Miriam was everywhere, but it was a good time.

Spencer was here for FHE and got to make I am a Child of God crowns. The girls were a little sad when he forgot to take his back to Utah, but I guess they will get over it.

The Joy

I really only posted pictures of Christmas but did not say too much about what the season held for us. It really was quiet and joyful around here and we loved it. The weeks previous Miriam began skipping everywhere. The excitement brewed out of her little body like a light. She was so excited about Santa and reindeer that she could barely contain it. Rebekah was so sweet and was the dutiful big sister who taught Miriam everything she needed to know about Christmas time. Although, Rebekah this year made a leap in her Christmas joy. She really began to understand that Christmas is really about the Savior and that was wonderful to see. When she woke up Christmas morning she came in bright eyed into our room and announced....that it was Jesus' birthday. She was darling about it.
Some of my favorite things this year was the girls getting into the giving attitude. The girls made gifts for each other. Rebekah made Miriam hair bows (She picked out the ribbon and flowers and helped cut and glue) and Miriam made Bekah bean bags (she picked out the fabric and I sewed and she filled them with beans). Also, regularly the girls would find items around the house and wrap them up and deliver them to someone in the house and watch them unwrap a their gift. My favorite was when Miriam wrapped up a few pieces of Christmas chocolate and brought them to Glenn and said Merry Christmas Daddy. As he opened the chocolates she said..."you can open them but don't eat them because those are mine." We laughed pretty hard. We also went through lots of tape, but I didn't not want to stop the fun. Another of my favorite things was our qualitree, which was inspired by Mike our Brother-in-law. We made a tree and put a picture of the Savior at the top. We all wrote quality's of the Savior on a paper ornament and then hung it on the tree. And throughout the season those who entered our home got to add their own ornament. It helped our family realize that Christmas is about Christ and help our children learn about the qualities of Christ as we read stories about him to them and remarks from General authorities about Christmas and Christ they were able to learn more. I think it is a tradition we will keep.
We also watched several Church Christmas movies. Our favorite is Mr. Crougars Christmas. And lots of Santa Christmas movies. We made cookies and delivered them with the girls to all our friends. We re-enacted the nativity several times with Marcus as baby Jesus each time. We also spent Christmas Eve at our friends house with the Missionaries and ate good food and had lots of fun. Christmas Day we just spent all to ourselves and enjoyed every minute. The girls were so enthused about Santa and opening presents. We ate a delicious Christmas breakfast after and then played with toys and napped before Christmas dinner. The best part of it all was that everything was so calm since we didn't travel and that took a lot of stress out of Christmas. So wonderful!!! I can't wait until next year.


The Qualitree and wrapping gifts.

Visitors

A few days before Thanksgiving we got to spend some time with Kara and Dave (Kara is a friend from High School) for a bit. They were visiting family in DC so we benefited from it. We loved spending time with them and and their cute kids. Our kids are so close in age...they get along well. I have been so lucky to see Kara rather often seeing as how we live so far away from each other. I guess having both of us visit Utah or Colorado at similar times helps, but they have also made it up to our area twice now. Who knows when we will make it to Indiana to visit them. Kara is just one of those friends who when you see it seems like no time has gone by and you are just as good of friends as you were in high school. Thanks for the visit Kara and Dave.

Birthday Girl

I missed a few fun occasions last month so I may be doing some catching up just for journaling sake.

Rebekah turned 5 in November. We did a small family party for her where she and Miriam and I made the birthday cake and Rebekah got to use her new apron she got for her birthday. She is getting to be such a big kid.