Grant’s Birthday

We have a 15-year-old in our house. How did this happen?!?! Grant had a birthday on Saturday. We took him to Lagoon since it is also Spring Break! We had fun riding the rides, and eating yummy food. Grant loves to go on all the rides and so does everyone else so we stuck together pretty much all day. It was kind of busy on Saturday since it was right before Easter. After Lagoon closed we went to dinner at Cracker Barrel and he had 2 big pork chops and fries! He loved it. We did birthday pancakes when we got back!

Saturday Trip

Took a small Teip on a Saturday with James and Adam to Richfield. We took Adam with us. The older two didn’t want to come. James had some loans to do, so we came along for the ride. We did his loans, and waited in the car. Then we went to the Brown Bear Restaurant in Beaver for lunch. It was delicious. 

Adam got scared of all the bears in the restaurant. He would hardly walk out with me to the car. He’s so funny! 

Adam’s Baptism

We baptized our Adam on March 4th, 2023. We invited family to come see this. We were the only family baptizing a child, so we got to run the whole program. My mom, Kirk, Lewis and Katelyn came from my side, and Julie and Brian’s family, David and Becky, and James parents came from his. Adam’s primary presidency leader Sister Nilsson came with her baby. This was a very special day for us. Grandma Shauna played the piano and Julie lead us in our songs. We got to hear Audrey’s awesome testimony on baptism and she did so well! She said everything in such a clear way and taught us the importance of baptism. And even linked it back to the sacrament. She is such a treasure and a sweet spirit. Heavenly Father gave us a great gift by letting us raise her. Such a sweet spirit and soul. James baptized Adam and Audrey and Grant were witnesses. We started right in the baptismal room and then moved to the primary ro for the confirmation. I wished I had invited more people to be there because you could certainly feel Heavenly Father and Jesus presence. They definitely know who Adam is! James confirmed him a member of the church and gave him a beautiful blessing. K

Julie and Brian and Hunter and Maddie stayed at our house overnight. We came back after the baptism for a late breakfast. My mom and Kirk left at around noon or so. We had a good visit. It was much needed. We went bowling after our breakfast was over and then went to Hermies for an early dinner late lunch. It was a great day and one I hope our family will never forget. The church is true and and every baptism

Is wonderful, but there is that one special moment when you just really know that there is a Heavenly Father and his Son Jesus Christ. And they certainly are aware of Adam in every wonderful way possible. We feel super grateful that we have this wonderful spirit in our home named Adam. 

Adam’s 8th Birthday

Adam turned 8 on the 10th. He had a great day! Started it off with the traditional number pancake. 

We had a family party for him At home. 

He got a bunch of Bluey toys and a Cars track. He loves soccer so we got him a soccer goal and a ball, but we can’t play with that outside yet because of the cold. He loved his birthday cake. I couldn’t find a Bluey cake, so I bought a toy play set and stick them on his cake. It worked pretty well! Adam had a great birthday weekend. We also went to the Killpack’s and had a cake there as well and sang to him. Happy Birthday to Adam! Eight is great!

Disneyland

On Sunday we went to California Adventure. We woke up for rope drop. Wanted to do Cars ride but it was broken down, then got in line for another ride and was told it was back up. Left the line, and then got in line for Cars. It broke down again. It finally came back up and we ended up waiting an hour or so before we got to ride. Glad we did though. The line just got longer as the day went on. We loved Guardians of the Galaxy. We rode that 3 times. Incredicoaster was fun too. I was made to go on the Pixar wheel. It was scary for me, but my family loved it. They swing us around twice. We went on a swinging car. Hope my family appreciated the one I took for the team. It was not fun for me. On the ride James admitted that it had made him nauseous. He had to look at the floor. 🙂 Glad I am not the only one. We ate well at the park. Had a Chinese dish for lunch that was the hottest thing James had ever eaten. My wonton nachos were delicious and Adam and Audrey like their pork ramen noodles. For dinner we had pacific wharf soup in a bread bowl. I had corn chowder and it was delicious. I also got try a lemon churro and it was yummy! Audrey bought herself a few churros. 🙂

Universal Studios

We arrived Friday night and the next morning we were in our way to Universal. We got there just as they opened but we were met with a few more people than when we went in October.  We still had a great time! We did the Harry Potter ride first which is an excellent  ride. Easily the favorite. We headed to the Simpsons which had a decent wait time but we wanted to get it done with so we rode it and had a great time. I loved the Studio Tour! They had the Jaws shark working again (wasn’t working in October). We did the Studio tour again at night and it was a bit different. So glad we did it twice in a day. Longest wait was The Mummy. We passed the time in line with Disney trivia which between me and Audrey we cleaned up! We had a big donut from Lard Lad’s which was delicious.  Grant bought himself a stuffed Bart and a t-shirt that said best vacation ever. Audrey got her a small Maggie stuffed animal. We had a great day! 

The minions ride was pretty cute! Adam loved it! We all did!

I had to laugh at Adam who was a little scared of sticking his hand through this hole. A small burst of air will spray out. The kids ahead of us loved it and then got Adam curious. He finally did it! He found his brave!

We ate really good! We had a delicious pizza for lunch and for dinner we had this big donut and a chocolate iced one underneath. They are huge! We still felt hungry so we stopped for something on our way back from the park. 

Last picture of the day. All tired, but happy! 

Our Disney Trip

Went to school for another ordinary Friday and got

to leave for Disneyland! Our hotel room was super cute with this bunk bed situation for Adam:

Super cute! Audrey shared the top bunk with him. So fun! 

Snuggles

After a long day of work, cooking dinner, making treats for a work lunch tomorrow, going to an SEP for Adam all I really want to do is crash on the couch. Good thing this little guy still wants to snuggle with me! 

Practice

Audrey and I have ukuleles. Audrey also has a violin. She is great at both instruments. I am far behind her. But we have fun practicing. We try to do it whenever we can. She has become my teacher. Last night I played Are You Sleeping which we practiced from our ukulele book. I was quite proud of myself. When we were done Audrey played a few Disney ukulele songs on her violin. They sounded great! She is so good at both instruments. 

Headphones

Grant got a pair of headphones for Christmas. But, they didn’t quite fit. We told him he could by himself some new ones with his own money. So Grant loves to research things he is interested in. We told him he had to think about it for a few days before he made his decision. While he was contemplating, he gave me quite the earful of everything about headphones and how I should also get some, and how they absolutely had to have noise cancellation. So, I also found a pair because I find it annoying that my Bluetooth earbuds often fall out while I am exercising. We got them today, and we are both loving them at the moment. I am hoping Grant will be happy with what he has for at least a few years. We shall see. 

Early Morning Reading Session

We had to take the truck into get worked on. James had to take me to school so we had to bring Adam. I told Adam on the way in that he needed to let me get my work done. I found him a Peppa Pig book. Read him one story and then let him sit at a table to look at the rest of it. And he did! He “read” his book out loud for  whole 25 minutes and I got some work done. Super proud of him that he let a book get his attention for that long. 

And when I say early I mean early. We were at the school at 7:45. 🙂

Something nice

We challenged Grant to do something nice for Adam today. This morning I was up and exercising, while trying to make pancakes for breakfast. Grant volunteered. He needed some help making the batter, but flipped pancakes, poured syrup on them and cut them up for Adam. I was happy he did this!

I hope we remember to challenge hi everyday to do something nice for others. 🙂

Growing

Adam is getting so big.  I found him like this:

Stretched out on the arm of our couch. Pretty soon, he will not be able to do this. Glad I caught him when I did! 

Haircuts

Audrey and I both got our haircut from a gal in our ward named LaDawn. She is wonderful. She does a thorough job and really cares about how it looks at the end. I am sad that she is moving but happy that she can be with her husband more. She’s cut our hair a few times and we love her doing it for us! 

Her house is amazing and we love her doing our hair. She did say that she could stop and see is and cut our hair as she has a daughter in St. George. I hope so! We will miss her! 

Stake Conference Sunday

We got to go to our stake conference today at 10. We heard some great talks about being prepared and preparing our youth for missions. We took our 3 there and they all did pretty well. Adam got up around 7 and played a good while on his iPad  the he didn’t get to have it for three rest of the day and so he was off. But Grant got him to play super Mario u on the Switch and he had fun. Adam was very hard though. He has a hard time when we say know and will keep asking the same thing over and over so you think he doesn’t understand what you are saying? It is very frustrating and it tests my patience. It’s not just about his saying no. It’s about every aspect of his day. He has a hard time remembering things. Anyway, today was great. We got stuck in the parking lot driving out of conference. We had to have some other men help push us. We got home and has red chicken with potatoes. Grant helped make blondies. It was a good day. Also, we read our scriptures at dinner and Grant even commented on how much he liked it. 

Us in stake conference. 🙂

Weekend Chores

This morning James, Audrey and Grant had to go to the Youth in Zion at SUU institute. They heard some amazing speakers. They had to be at the church T 8 and th they were home a little after 11. While they were gone, Adam and I hung out. He played outside and on the Nintendo Swotch while I cleaned up the whole top part of our house. It needed a lot of work. I mopped, vacuumed, cleaned and organized and dusted. I got to go through my nightstand and put things back in the proper place. It feels good to know where things are again. My next goal is to clean out Adam’s closet and dresser. The have gone through our kitchen island, office, Adam’s toys, our coffee table. Still have more to do, but I like just doing a bit at a time. It is way less overwhelming to organize this way. At the end of the day, some cuddles were in order from Adam. We also took Adam and Audrey out for lunch. Grant didn’t want to go. 😔 He is on a walking spree and that is all he can think about. He is asking for a tread mill for his birthday! Also got to spend time with Audrey in the hot tub. Love these days with my family. 

Lunch with Audrey, Hames and Adam at dad’s office. We had Costa Vida. 

Couldn’t leave out sweet little Betsy. 😘