Zach's Baptism

I swear, I am NOT old enough to have a son being baptized! Where did the last 8 years go? I know I keep saying that, but every time I turn around, I realize how fast time is going and slipping away from me. But regardless of whether I was ready for it or not, Zach was baptized last Saturday.

It was a memorable day to start out with as we woke up to snow - on the 9th of April! Welcome to spring in Utah, it will never cease to amaze and surprise.


I laughed as the kids ran to the front window to see if there was snow out front too - as if it would just snow on one side of the house! They really make me laugh sometimes!


The night before his baptism, we gave Zach a brand new suit to wear since his old one was WAY too short. He looked so handsome all dressed up.


At 10:30am, we headed over to the church and Zach got dressed in his white clothes. I love this picture behind him - so appropriate to have him standing in front of the Savior on such a special day.


Even though they had practiced many times, I was worried he'd get nervous. But he was all smiles and happy.


Here's Jeremiah with him. Two of my three handsome boys. Tate was there by the way, sitting on the floor and grabbing my skirt as I was trying to take the picture, which is why it's a little blurry.


After that, Jeremiah and Zach headed for a little instruction and Tate and I headed to the chapel to meet up with the family. When 11:00am arrived, we had opening exercises with talks on baptism and the Holy Ghost, then a presentation of those getting baptized. There were 3 wards from our stake in our baptism session - a total of 8 kids getting baptized. We were one 1 of 3 sessions, so you can imagine how many kids were getting baptized in our stake - probably around 25 or so. We have a stake with a lot of young families, so this is pretty normal.

When it was our ward's turn, we all went to the font where the 3 boys from our ward were baptized and then confirmed. Zach did great. Jeremiah said he wasn't nervous until they got in the water - which they said was a touch cold. Anyway, even though there was much practicing, Zach panicked as he got to about his ears, then he tried to push back up. Since Jeremiah's hand was holding onto Zach's that was holding his nose, that was the only way for Jeremiah to push him all the way under. He said he didn't think he pushed that hard, but when Zach came up and then they were walking out of the font, he noticed that Zach's nose was bleeding slightly. It stopped almost immediately, but Jeremiah really felt bad. Zach didn't seem to care and he was all smiles when he came back from getting cleaned up.

Once all 3 boys were confirmed, we wrapped up the meeting. All of our family headed back to our house for lunch. The first order of business was for Zach to open up all of his gifts from everyone.


He got so many gifts and loved every one:

Hailey and Tate gave him a bible
Nana and Papa Downs gave him a triple combination
Nana, Papa, and Troy Hawks gave him a baptism book
Jon, Holli, and Family gave him a tie tac and toys
Michael and Afton gave him a CTR basketball tie tac
Michelle, Brian, and Family gave him scripture markers, book marks
Kylie, Jedd, and Libby gave him a scripture case
Both Great Nanas sent him $5
(I hope I'm remembering all the correctly, please forgive me if I've remembered this wrong!)


He wanted a picture with Nana and Papa on his special day.


(We missed Nana and Papa from California, but knew they were with us in spirit!)

After all that, everyone changed and had some lunch. The kids all had a blast playing together and the adult had a good time chatting and hanging out.

With much angst, I was able to force the family to sit down for a quick picture as we were leaving the church. It had been a long morning with lots of pictures already, but thankfully we were able to get a good one of us.


We are so proud of Zachary and his decision to be baptized. It was certainly a special day and one I will never forget.

Time for Scouts!

With the 8th birthday comes many things. One of those most exciting (according to our 8 year old) is scouts! (I probably don't need to mention that the parents are a little less enthused.)

Zach has been looking forward to scouts since January. At the Great to be 8 meeting, one of the scout leaders came and told all about the fun things they were able to do in the program. Zach was listening, but he really perked up when the scout leader mentioned that they were able to shoot bows and arrows at their day camp last summer. Ever since then, Zach has been dying to get into scouts because he's so excited about shooting bows and arrows. We have tried and tried to explain to him that they don't do it every week and it might be something else this summer, but he's determined that he's going to shoot a bow and arrow at some point.

Well, this last month he turned 8 and was finally able to go. He got a scout shirt and book from Nana and Papa and a scout belt from Kylie, Jedd, and Libby for his birthday. Thank goodness, because the mere cost of the scarf, slide, and patches for his shirt was ridiculous! I can't imagine how much it would have been to buy it all on our own (thanks guys for helping us get him ready with so much!).

On his first night, he got everything on and was so darn cute, I just couldn't resist taking a few pictures.


He was so excited, I couldn't help but giggle as he ran out the door, pulling his Dad along.


It was so fun to see him so excited to go. He came home all smiles and couldn't wait to go again the next week. I'm proud of him for being such a big boy and trying all sorts of new things. Although, it does make me a little sad to realize how big he is getting.

Indoor Soccer

The last few years, we've signed Zach up for outdoor soccer, but every year it's overlapped with baseball for a few weeks. It's always been right near the end of school, which is crazy enough with just one sport, so this year we decided to give indoor soccer a try. It was scheduled for earlier, so no overlapping. Zach was very excited and we were excited to watch him play. He looked so cute!


And boy, was he excited to play!


Indoor soccer is a bit different than outdoor soccer and a lot of the kids (Zach included) struggled to learn how to use the wall to their advantage. Practice was 20 minutes right before the game, so it was hard to go over too much in that short amount of time. But they did some great drills.


He was always glancing up at us to see if we were watching.


There was also a lot of scoring practice. This was his favorite part!


During the game, he was incredible! He was chasing that ball all over the place.


It was hard to not get a blurry picture!


Kick-off was about the only time I him actually holding still (that sounds bad, but actually it's a good thing that he was active).


He especially excelled in defense, he loved staying back to protect the goal. Maybe there's a future goalie in the making?!?


Early on in the season, he also scored a goal. I didn't have my camera with me that day, but it was really neat to see and he sure was proud of himself.

Since the still shots don't do it justice, here's some video of him playing:



Tate spent a lot of his time in his stroller being pushed around by his older sister.


He loved every second of it.


When Hailey wasn't pushing him, she was busy watching the aerobics or Zumba classes going on right next to us.


Or playing with friends she'd made in the few minutes we'd been there (she really is a little social butterfly).


Nana and Papa made it to 2 of Zach's games and Tate loved sitting and playing with them. He loved Papa and couldn't take his eyes off of him all day!


Tate also has mastered vibrating his lips. It's hilarious to watch and after numerous tries, I finally got it on video:



As you can tell, we all had a wonderful time watching (or playing during) Zach's games. We are continually amazed at his athletic ability - which we all know he gets from Jeremiah (there's no way it's from me because I can't walk straight half the time!). We had a fun season of indoor soccer and are trying to decide if we should do that again or go back to outdoor soccer - good thing we have a whole year to think about it! Next up for Zach is baseball - hooray!

Catching a Leprechaun

is hard, they're pretty tricky you know.

A few weeks ago, Zach came home with a school assignment to build a leprechaun trap that was due on St. Patrick's Day. My first thought was, YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME - THESE KIDS ARE ONLY IN SECOND GRADE! But Zach was really excited and had even come up with a design all on his own (maybe there's a little bit of engineer in him just like his mom!). So after thinking about it for a few days, we looked at his ideas and after only a slight modification, we had our design. Using some items around the house, we built our trap early last week and had it all ready to go for St. Patrick's Day.

Here's our trap all built:


Here's how it works. The Leprechaun will come up to the trap and notice the WELCOME! sign on the front, so of course he'll come right up into the box. The next thing he'll do is see the ramp with the sign tell him that there is gold this way and to go where the arrow is pointing.


He'll walk up the ramp and notice the shiny gold coin at the top. Well, since Leprechauns just love shiny, gold things, he'll really want that gold for his pot of gold. He'll think he can just walk right across that white ramp across the cup. Of course what he doesn't know is that is made of paper, so as soon as he starts across and grabs the gold, he'll fall into the cup holding on to the gold coin. But you'll notice that the gold is attached to a string which also has a round piece of cardboard attached as well. As the string is pulled, this piece of cardboard also comes down and covers the cup, trapping the leprechaun inside.


Unfortunately, we didn't catch any leprechauns this year, but Zach had a blast taking it to school and explaining/demonstrating his nifty little leprechaun trap. He was so proud of coming up with the design and pretty much building it all by himself (minus the hot gluing part!).


To be honest, what I thought was going to be really painful turned into a really fun time for the two of us to talk, plan, and build. We were really both excited and proud with the final product.

In fact, he had so much fun, he told me that he's already thinking about the changes he wants to make to it for next year. Oh boy, this should be fun! :)

Zach's 8th Birthday

Zach had a full week of birthday celebrations this year. We started off with a little family party the Sunday before his birthday. We had Nana, Papa, Ashton, Branson, Aunt Kylie, Uncle Jedd, and Libby all here to celebrate. We had dinner, opened presents, and had cake and ice cream. It was the perfect kick-off to a fun week. I didn't get any pictures because things were just crazy, but here are the fun presents he got:

Nana and Papa - Scout shirt, sports trading cards
Kylie, Jedd, and Libby - Scout belt, scout pencils
Ashy and Brans (and Aunt Shell and Uncle Brian) - sports trading card set

On Friday, Zach's actual birthday, we started out the day with a special birthday breakfast. Yes, those are blue crepes you see! We seem to have started this tradition of a special colored breakfast for the birthday person. This year Zach wanted blue crepes, so blue crepes he got.


And what would breakfast be without an "AAAARRRR PIRATES?!?"


Yes, he was pretty excited to have such a special breakfast before school!


Tate wasn't sure what to make of all the craziness that morning. He sat in his highchair for a bit just looking at his silly brother and sister. Of course, he seemed just fine with everything once I started giving him little baby bites of crepes. Yes, I think he's found a new favorite breakfast!


After breakfast and getting everything set, we sent Zach off for a fun day at school where he said they had a little party for him and he got balloons (which were apparently so much better than the ones I had hung for him at home - go figure!). Later that afternoon, Nana and Papa came back down to have dinner, cake and ice cream, and open presents again. This time I was able to get quite a few pictures:

For Christmas, Jeremiah did a fun little scavenger hunt for me and ever since then, Zach has been telling me he wanted a treasure hunt for his birthday. So I decided to put one together for him and make all his gifts from us as the treasure. He started out with one clue and then once he figured out the place he was supposed to go, off he went giggling in search of the next one.


He didn't quite get it, but every clue I came up with rhymed. I still can't figure out why I spent so much time getting the clues and rhymes just right - he was just excited to run around finding clues.


Once the "treasure" was found, it was time to open them up.

* Nana and Papa gave him a scout book
* Uncle Bubby and Aunt Afton sent him some monster trucks and some basketball shorts
* Hailey gave him a Buzz Lightyear Operation Game (I'm not sure who was more excited to play it, her or him)
* Tate gave him a whole bunch of sports trading cards
* Jeremiah and I gave him a mp3 player/microphone, Trios, and a tie





Tate spent most of the present opening time with Nana and Papa because that wrapping paper was just too tempting and he kept putting it in his mouth.


Once we finished opening presents and had everything cleaned up, he wanted back on the floor, so that's where he went and proceeded to roll ALL OVER THE PLACE!


A little bit later, it was time for cake and ice cream. This year Zach just wanted a simple cake with blue frosting and red sprinkles (what a relief, I'm definitely not a fancy cake decorator!).


After lighting the candles, singing Happy Birthday to you, it was time to blow them out. Zach can not seem to do that without smiling!


For his birthday, Zach decided he wanted to have potatoes and gravy for dinner, so instead of going out to eat, we just had dinner at home where we could make it just the way he liked it. Jeremiah of course had to do something wacky, so he put green food coloring in the mashed potatoes. I meant to get a picture, but they were gobbled up before I even had a chance!

He also decided he wanted to go to the Nickelcade again (the same as last year). Instead of trying to go on Friday night, we decided to go on Saturday afternoon in between Tate's naps so that we all could go and have fun. It was really loud, but Tate didn't seem to mind. He loved riding the little merry-go round, ...


... the truck with his brother, ...


... and numerous other driving games with his dad.


The kids just love to do the driving games. It's so fun to see the two of them sitting there playing. Hailey was hilarious though, she spent more time watching Zach, Tate, or anything else than she did to watching what she was doing. Ironically, she took 1st place more times than Zach did, go figure.


One of their favorite games to play is skeeball. They probably got this from me, becuase it's one of my absolute favorite games as well. I was really impressed with how well Zach did - he got the ball in so many high point areas, he's really got good control with rolling it up the ramp. He definitely takes his time and makes sure he's good and set before letting the ball go. Hailey on the other hand, is much more spuratic. In fact, I don't think she was even looking half the time before she threw the ball. Notice I said "threw" not "rolled" - she hit the outside cage more times than not. Another few trips there and we'll probably owe them a brand new skeeball machine!


Another favorite is the air hockey game. The kids loved playing this. Zach won by quite a margin, but that's only because accidentally hit the puck into her own goal a couple of times. But regardless of the score, they had a blast!


After finishing up at the Nickelcade an hour and a half later (that felt more like 10 hours later), we drove down to the Krispy Creme Donuts to watch donuts being made and get a little treat.

And thus ended another birthday for our big boy. He kept telling us how much fun he had and how he can't wait until his birthday next year.

I can't believe he's 8 already - where did all that time go? Next up for him is his baptism next month. He's so excited and can hardly wait!

Tate Is Nine Months Old!

Yes, that's right, I said nine months. Where on earth did all that time go? Our little baby has really grown up, in fact, he's not so little anymore. Just ask the doctor, here were his stats at his nine month appointment:

Length: 29 1/2 inches (~90th percentile)
Weight: 24 lbs, 9 ounces (~95th percentile)
(Yes, I have to lug around a 25 pound little bundle of chub everywhere I go!)

I knew he would be big and I was right, just about 25 pounds. I wish I could say it was beefing up my muscles, but all it's seemed to do is make my arms really, really tired all the time. Good thing I love that little monkey!

Here are a couple of fun new things that Tate is doing or about him at nine months:

- He now has 3 teeth, two on the bottom and one on the top. He's the cutest when he smiles and you see these tiny little teeth popping up from his bottom gums. Getting them in wasn't the most fun, they all 3 popped through in about the space of 2-3 days. Luckily other than being a bit cranky, we didn't have too much of a hard time, although I'm sure it wasn't very much fun for Tate. Now that he's got some teeth, we are on to the fun part of eating, namely teething biscuits. Both Zach and Hailey loved these and it seems Tate is not exception. He loves to eat them, smear the goo all over everything, and make a tremendous mess!



- Tate absolutely loves being in his megasaucer. He will jump up and down and spin around in that thing for quite a while, which is nice if I need to get something done and need to have him stay in one place. He also loves this little singing monkey toy Hailey gave him for Christmas (I love that smile!).



- He discovered his tongue quite a bit ago, but he's just recently figured out he can twist it around in his month. It's darling to watch because he always has the funniest expressions on his face.



- He is really mobile now. Even though he doesn't crawl, he's figured out how to get himself around by using his feet to turn his body and rolling to get where he wants to go. He spends a lot of time on his belly and sometimes wiggles himself backwards, so we're probably on the verge of crawling.



- I quite often will lay him down in the center of the floor and will look back maybe 2 to 3 seconds later and he will be all the way across the room. His favorite thing to do is get himself situated near a wall where he can kick it. He will usually lay there and kick the wall forever!



- He is finally done with his acid reflux! Something I am so grateful for since it seemed he was going to be spitting up into his 30's! Now that he's off his medication and not spitting anymore, it's been so much less stressful even doing some of the ordinary things in life!

- He loves to eat big people food. In fact, the doctor said that he's now able to have some table food as long as it's small and soft. This means more potatoes and gravy, ice cream, and his recently discovered love: crepes!

We certainly are having fun with him and seeing him do all these new and exciting things. He is such a joy to our entire family, we are just loving everything about him!