Abraham's 8th Birthday

 My little Abraham turned 8 today.  He was supposed to be baptized at 10 this morning.  We were supposed to enjoy his baptism and then come home to share yummy crepes (his request) with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandma and grandpa. He was supposed to blow out cake candles and open gifts.  He was supposed to enjoy his day playing and celebrating this very special birthday.  Instead, he spent the day on the couch with his favorite "horse" blanket (black side always facing out) sometimes watching some TV, sometimes drifting in and out of sleep, and sometimes picking on Ziya... all the time fighting influenza B.  He actually wasn't too bad during the day, just a little low on energy (compared to yesterday anyway, when he could barely walk, eyes were red and he burned with fever for most of the day).  At moments (probably those when he was picking on Ziya), I even questioned whether we'd made the right decision in postponing his baptism.  But when we finally sat down to have the crepes with just our immediate family, it hit him hard again.  So hard that after mustering up the energy to open his family presents, he decided to skip cake and go straight to bed.


Here he is getting ready for crepes.  We always make the kids eat the "healthy" ones first (eggs and sausage) before having the nutella, whipped cream and fruit.  Abe requested his tiny bit of eggs and sausage NOT INSIDE the crepe.  Then Kenai made the same request.  I wondered why I'd even bothered making them (they're not exactly easy!).  Ammon answered that thought by eating about 8 of them!

We had to cut crepe-time short because Abe was running out of energy.  He opened his gifts and was excited for what he got:  some new scriptures with his name engraved on them, a CTR bag to carry them in, a Baptism Memories book and a cool spinning CTR sports ring from mami and papi, a CTR tie (the real tying kind!) from Ammon, a little 3 minute scripture reading timer from Ziya, and scripture marking crayons from Kenai. 

And finally, a pose with brothers and sister.  It wasn't the day we'd planned for, but when it ends with a picture like this, my heart is grateful.  Jacob carried him up the stairs and he was out like a light!  Hopefully it won't be too long before I write a post about a very happy and healthy baptism day!!!

  Happy birthday sweet Abraham!


Now it's Sunday, and I've stayed home from church with Abraham and Kenai, who is now burning a 102 fever! Abe and I went through the year's photos and made this little slideshow of his past year.

A Perfect Snow Day (back in January sometime)

I don't know how to blog anymore... on several different levels. I just finished catching up on friends' blogs and everybody has such cute backgrounds. I don't know how to do those. Everybody has cute new features. I don't know how to do those either. Heck, I started this post over a month ago and couldn't get it done in one sitting. I don't even know how to do that anymore! It's definitely going to be a work in progress for me. I need to change my big family picture and all of my sidebar pictures (the kids have changed in the past two years... just a little bit). But in spite of all this, one day last month I felt inspired to share my day; so even though it's old news, I WILL finish this one. I'll worry about the other stuff later.

January 20
Jacob's phone rang at 5:30 a.m. As soon as I figured out that it wasn't his alarm, I knew what it was. SNOW DAY!!! He quickly made his own call for the phone tree, checked the news to verify that our own kids also didn't have school and then went back to sleep. Although we didn't get to sleep in too long (forgot to turn off Ammon's alarm), it was nice not to have to rush, rush, rush all morning. We all had breakfast together and then got geared up to go play in the snow... after all, it is a snow day!

We finished the shoveling and the kids played with Penny for a while. She's kind of wimpy in the snow, but it was fun to see her chasing the kids and trying to jump on the sled.



There's a little hill not too far from where we live. If Ammon and Abe think about it too much, they complain about the hill not being steep enough for them. Luckily, they didn't think about it too much today. They were all just so excited to finally have snow to play in!




After playing in the snow, we went home and were just "hanging out" when all of a sudden I realized that it was a perfect day! This is what made it all so perfect:

Ziya and Kenai were helping me make bread. Ziya has always liked to bake with me and now Kenai is finally catching on, too. And seeing his cute little potty-training naked butt made it all the more precious.


Ammon was having fun playing with Penny. She loves the attention and I love seeing the kids play with her.


Abe was engulfed in another great book. He keeps getting reading awards at school. Love it.

And Jacob was finally able to take a nap (he claims that was his first day-nap in years!).


All of this was set to some great music. I love Peter Breinholt. I used to listen to his stuff a lot when I worked at the Museum of Art at BYU... great times.
A few minutes later on my playlist was Matsiyahu. This inspired the dancing. I love it when my kids dance. Kenai was just as into it as Ziya, but I can't post his pictures for lack of modesty! He sings along to "One Day" though and I love it!

It really was a perfect day.