Happy Birthday, Cam-D!

I know, I know. It's been way too long since I posted. I've just been so busy the last few weeks. Work is really crazy right now, and when I get home, I don't often feel like getting back onto the computer. But, today is a special day, so it was worth it to stay up a little later last night to get this post ready.

Today is Camden's first birthday! I can't believe he is already one year old! He is our youngest nephew--which means we've had babies born every year since 2001, until this year. Sad, huh? I keep telling my brothers and sisters to have some more, but no luck yet. Hopefully someday I'll be able to add to the tally of grandchildren. But until then, I'm so grateful for these little ones, who bring so much joy into my life!

Here I am with Camden the day he was born. He looked just like his brothers and sisters when he was born--so darling!

Here he is with Mommy and Aunt Karla on the 4th of July--exactly one month old.

And here he is with Mommy a few months later. Look at those big eyes! I think he has the biggest and most expressive eyes of all of his siblings.

I love the look on his face in this picture--he's starting to get a little more inquisitive!

He just does so many cute expressions, and always those huge eyes! His first two siblings had brown eyes, but he and his big brother Brayden ended up with blue. And doesn't Stace look cute in this picture? I love the way she is smiling at him.

Here I am holding him and Jenni (who was sad about something). I think this was at Thanksgiving last year (I put the pictures in last night and am typing the rest of this entry on my laptop on the bus, so I can't look at the dates on the pictures).

Here he is with Aunt Jan and cousin Mieka in January, at cousin Matthew's first birthday. Every picture I see of him, I just can't get over those beautiful eyes! (And doesn't Mieks look cute with those red bows? Oh, and of course, Jan loooks great too, but she's not a niece or nephew, so I guess I don't have to mention that necessarily--but I will). :)

I love this one. I'm not sure what he was eating, but it must have been chocolate something. So cute!

I know I put this picture on Brayden's birthday post, but I had to put it on Camden's as well. I love the look on his face. He's not too sure about a kiss from his big brother...

I love this one from a month or so ago, when we visited Adam and Stace. After we ate, Stace gave him a bath in the sink, and he loved it. I just had to snap a picture. What a cutie!

And finally, the last one, from our family birthday party last week. I love that he's sucking his thumb--just like big sister Bri. And once again, those big blue eyes. It looks like he might have brown hair though--you'll have to check back at his two year old birthday post to find out for sure! Oh, and check out Stace's blog here, to see him taking his first steps. What a big boy! http://stacesplace.blogspot.com/2009/06/biggest-boy.html

I'm so grateful for all of my sweet nieces and nephews, and love to watch them growing up and becoming such good little boys and girls. They are such a blessing in my life! Happy birthday to our youngest little one (for now), little Camden!!

That is one tall building...

It's been way too long since I posted, so here is a long post to summarize the last week...

The title of my post comes from my niece Jenni. Last Monday, May 4 (Steve's birthday), Steve, Chelle, and the kids came up to visit me at work. I met them in the underground parking lot, and we went and had lunch in the cafeteria, then they came to my office, and we went to the 26th floor and looked at the view. When we came back down and went ouside, Jenni finally got to see the building (since we had been inside the whole time). Jenni looked up and said, "Wow. That is one tall building!" I thought that was so cute. I'm so glad they came up. Jenni and Joey were so cute, and Chelle had never been to the Church Office Building, so it was fun to show her around. Here are some pictures from that day (and happy birthday, Steve!)

The next two pictures are ones I snapped when I was walking to work from the bus stop the other morning. The flowers and temple were so beautiful in the morning light! Temple Square is just so pretty in the spring!

On Friday night Jan and I went over to Adam and Stace's house. We haven't been over with just them for a long time, and it was really fun. The kids were so excited to have us there. Stace made us dinner, and then we played games at the table. Here are a few pictures. I love how it looks like I have a halo in the first one:

Brady really wasn't stabbing Camden with a fork, but it sure looks that way!

Janice got this picture right as our dominoes were falling down. Cool!

After dinner, we sat and talked in the living room for a little while trying to decide what movie to watch. Adam played with Brady and Camden on the floor, and they loved it! Then we watched part of Cars and part of Sleeping Beauty--but Josh wanted it to be dark like a movie theater, so we had to watch it all laying on Adam and Stacey's bed. Thank goodness they have a big bed! It was really fun.

These next three pictures are from Saturday. We went to breakfast with Lisa and JoAnna, our friends from our last ward. On the way back, as we were coming from the freeway, we saw a huge column of smoke. We saw that there was a big building on fire right near our church. We went to a field aways away, and watched it together for about 45 minutes. We were so sick to think that it might be a condo complex--there are tons of them around there. But we found out later that it was a firefighter drill, and they were burning an abandoned house. It was such an awesome sight to see the power of the fire as it just consumed the whole house in such a short time. I had to snap a few pictures:

Finally, tonight we went to visit Mom for Mother's Day. It was really nice. We had Jan and I, Dan and Ems, Adam and Stace, and Steve and Dave came a little later. It was really nice to talk and joke, and Dan was teasing about playing the Ungame. We gave Mom her gift--it was actually a combined Mother's Day/birthday gift, so she already knew about it. But I thought it turned out so nice. I got the idea from my friend Debbie (thanks Debbie!) to do a picture pedigree chart. It took us awhile to find all of the pictures--we almost didn't find one for Dad's father's parents. Thankfully, we were finally able to find the pictures we needed, and Emilee spent hours making it all look nice. I love how it turned out--it gives me such a family feeling to look at it, and think of the legacy I have. It makes me realize that these were real people, who were once young like me, and had hopes and dreams and worries.

I'm so grateful for the gift of family, and for the love I feel for them--even those I didn't really know. I'll end my post with the picture pedigree:

**I decided I'd better take this off, since it has full names and birthdays. :)

Ethan's baptism

Today was my nephew Ethan's baptism. What a special day! I just felt so blessed to be a part of it. I went to their house a little early, and got to hear Seth giving Ethan last minute instructions, and making sure they had everything they needed. We got this picture while his Dad was talking to him. What a sweet boy!



Then we went over to the church, and once he and Seth changed into their clothes, we got a bunch of pictures. Here are some of my favorites:

I love this last one with him and his brothers and sister. In his confirmation blessing today, he was told that he was chosen to be a leader by his Heavenly Father, and that his brothers and sister would look up to him and would need his guidance and love. But, I'm getting ahead of myself...

I snapped this picture right before we went into the Primary room. My Dad was giving Seth some last minute instructions about how to hold Ethan while he baptized him. What would we do without our parents to support us at special times?

I didn't, of course, take any pictures of the baptism. But here are some of the kids lined up waiting for it to start. It was so fun to have so many of them in front.

I was so privileged to be asked by Ethan to speak at his baptism. I spoke about baptism, and I think it went well. I just felt so grateful to be able to testify that Heavenly Father asks us to be baptized so that He can bless us and so that we can someday return to Him. I also told about when Jan and I were baptized, and lived in North Carolina, so had to drive for an hour, and then there was only one dress, so since I was older, I got to wear the dry dress, and Jan had to wear a wet dress. The kids got a kick out of that. At the end I got really choked up, talking about how ever since Ethan was a baby, we've been talking about the milestones in his life--when he is baptized, gets the priesthood, goes on a mission, gets married, etc. I felt so proud of him that he has reached one of those milestones, and has made the choice to be baptized. It was just really special to get to talk at his baptism.

The baptism was really sweet--to see all of my other 18 nieces and nephews (well, more like 15 or so, since the babies were being held by their parents) leaning up against the glass, so excited to see what was happening. I couldn't take a picture, but "my heart took a picture." Then Seth got really emotional as he said the baptismal words. It was just a really sweet experience. Next year we will have four kids baptized. That will be so neat!

The confirmation was really special as well. I always get a little glimpse when I hear confirmation blessings about the true nature of the person being blessed--who they really are. One of my favorite things about the blessing is that Ethan was told that he was blessed with great faith, and would be an example to others of pure faith. I can't wait to see the young man he grows up to be.


We went afterward to Seth and Karla's house and had a little luncheon. It was fun to get to talk and spend time as family, and Jan and I gave Ethan a little present--a journal and a "Future Missionary" tag. He loved them, and was so cute about it.

What a wonderful day! I love my Ethan, and I'm so grateful he has always wanted me to be such a part of his life!

Happy Birthday, Brady!

I know, I know. It seems like I'm always doing a birthday post. But when you have no children of your own, your nieces and nephews become your babies--and so I have 19 "children", and thus you will see 19 birthday posts this year. I love reliving the memories of my little ones as I do these posts! They are so precious to me!

Little Brayden is turning three tomorrow, May 1. So, here is my birthday post for my cute little Brady!!

Brady was born on May 1, 2006, and so is only about 2 weeks younger than Joey--our closest two babies. It's been so fun to watch the two of them grow up! Here is a picture of me holding Brayden on the day he was born.

And here he is getting a kiss from big sister Briana. All of Stace's kids looked so much alike when they were born, but Brady didn't keep the brown haired brown eyed mold, as you will see in a few pictures...

Here he is with his mom in July, 2006, a few months old.


Here he is in August with cousin Joey and Uncle Steve. It's been fun to watch these two grow up together.

Here he is on Christmas, 2005. You can start to see his blonde hair and blue eyes. Where did those come from??

I love this picture of he and Stace. So cute!

These are candy bars that Stace made for his first birthday.

And here he is eating his birthday cupcake. I love the look in his face!

Here he is sacked out on the couch with daddy.

This is Christmas 2007 with cousin Dannan, Uncle Seth, and daddy.

Okay, I had to put this one in. Notice that he is wearing girl's Sunday shoes. I think they were actually Emma's shoes, because she is standing close by in the uncropped picture. I think he looks great! :)

I think he's about to throw Puff the Magic Dragon at me in this picture. Look at all that blonde hair!

This was taken in January of this year, with cousin Joey again, at Matthew's 1st birthday party. I'm not quite sure what they are doing with the cones...but it sure is cute! (P.S. the quote on the wall says, "Water should be our drink at all times," in case you were wondering)

This was last month at one of the birthday parties. I love the combination of colors he's wearing.

And this one was taken last week. I think it is the cutest picture--he's such a good big brother. Camden is not sure what to think, but what a cute brotherly kiss!

I'm so grateful for my little Brayden. He has such a cute personality, and I love to get see him growing up into such a darling litte boy. Happy Birthday, Brady!