Lydia's Baby Blessing

We worked it out that we got to bless Lydia the next day after Luke's baptism. It worked out great! Lydia cooperated great and sucked her binki like a good girl. Jared gave a beautiful blessing and we were so lucky to have family there to support us.

With 9am church her photo shoot was rushed, but here are some pics of Miss Lydia.

My friend made this beautiful dress for her, isn't she amazingly talented. It is such a cute dress. It was soo nice of her to do - Thanks Holly!

I'm still trying to figure out setting and lighting on the new camera.

Tagg said she looked like a princess...I would have to agree.

The crew before church.

Proud parents, after her blessing.

The fam.

My parents were there and so glad they made the trek up.

Jared's parents and two bros were there too.

After church we had a dinner with the fam and the boys showed off some art work they had. Jared challenged them to draw a symbolic picture representing a scripture he assigned them. He was trying to show them a different way to look at scriptures. We set up their stuff like an art gallery and let people look and then had the boys explain there stuff. It was fun for them to brag for a little bit, since we live so far from both sets of grandparents, I feel like they don't know our kids as well.

Rees

Luke

Darin

They all had some lego displays as well.

This was a close up of Darin's scripture art.

The next morning was school and the two younger kids had to say goodbye to G&G. Tagg bonding with grandpa Randy with his Thomas catalog.

Grandma Kerry couldn't get enough hold time in for little Lydia - she loves babies. We miss not being closer to family, but so glad they came to see us. Thanks everyone, we had fun!

Luke's Baptism

Luke turned 8 and got baptized! We are so proud of him and his great choices he is making. I can't believe that he is baptized already. We had grandparents and uncles here and it was a good meeting.

Luke in the awesome white jumper.

Jared & Luke

Grandma Kerry & Grandpa Randy w/ Luke

Grandma & Grandpa Snyder w/ Luke

Uncle Garett & Uncle Kyle made it down for the occasion

Proud parents

The boys - minus the disobedient 2 yr. old

The family - love seeing Lydia in pink and Tagg was not having it. Thanks to all for coming down and participating in the baptism. We had a great time and loved having you. We didn't take pics afterwards, we kind of rushed out of the building so they could lock up.



Of course after the baptism we had a pizza party and watched the BYU game.

The kids wearing their BYU shirts G&G Stenson gave them! So fun.

Our proud BYU family.

Bowling with the Grandparents

Our parents came to town for Luke's baptism and Lydia's baby blessing. We caught up on Friday night and decided to hit the town and go bowling Sat. morning. It was lots of fun!

My dad sat central command heckling everyone as they took their turn.

Lydia ate and hung out in her carseat with her new BYU shirt grandma Kerry gave her. Too cute.

Tagg attempted a few pushes of the ball but mostly hung out with Jared and wandered around.

Go Darin!

getting ready to bowl, we got bumpers for the kids & Grandma Snyder volunteered to join them. :)

Rees, gotta love those shoes!

The BYU tappers - they loved tapping their shoes while waiting for their turn. Also sporting their new shirts.

Luke taking it home.

Check out Dad's form! We had lots of fun. Grandma Snyder won with the help of some bumpers and I came dead last. Yep, that's right, a bowler I'm not. I couldn't get used to throwing ten lbs. down the lane, I am really out of shape. Thanks G&G's for a great time!

First Day of School & Scouts

The boys finally started school after the summer flew by. They were not so excited, but a little.

Luke, 3rd grade

brotherly love.

Rees, 5th grade
(I about died when he came down with soccer shorts for the first day of school...really? He got some mom thoughts on that choice)

Darin, Kindergarten - he was sooo excited, he actually started a few days later

Heading into school.

Darin found his name tag and was ready to go.

Since Luke turned 8, that means scouts! He was excited to go to his first den meeting with his buddy.

He was sporting Rees' shirt, since I still need to get his.

Where does the time go?

The Coast & Some

We finally made it to the coast for the summer. We headed to the OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center. It was pretty cool for being free.

This was the boys' favorite spot. They could create their own solar systems using a touch screen. They thought it was soo cool.

They had lots of fish tanks and had some fun touch pools.

This was a buoy in the front of the science center the boys were checking out.

We got there just in time for the octopus to eat, she was out and about and really cool to see moving all around.

Of course going to the coast requires going to the beach. The boys found some small sand dunes and a little watering hole were they played.

Lydia was in her carseat most the time, but here she is after I fed her in the car.

Boys being boys in the sand and water.

Darin cracks me up, he is covered in water and sand, and can he even see??

This face makes me laugh, what a nut. You can see that the wind was blowing pretty good.

Proof that I actually was there.

The boys finally trekked out to the ocean for a little bit. It was so windy it was like a sand storm walking over there. The water was cold but they had fun. That's Jared, Luke and Rees in the ocean.

Darin and Tagg had enough, they were freezing.

We also went to our local fountains before school started.

The boys hanging out in the sun.

Rees, Luke & Darin loving it.

Tagg got stung by a bee right as we were leaving, he's holding his hand where he got stung and it took him a while to venture into the water.

And of course the fall means the beginning of football season, BYU football!!

Lydia sporting a cougar onesie, she looked so much like the boys in this outfit.

Jared is so excited to watch the cougs. Lydia hanging with dad on game day. We had a pretty low key summer, with a new baby and all. We did some things and now the boys are heading back to school.