Jake is 8!

September 23rd was a big day.  Jake turned 8, celebrated with his family & got baptized.  It was a busy day!

The celebrations started the day before with family coming in from Dallas.  There was pizza and games, and a fun cool swim at night in the hotel pool.  Jake & Hayley stayed at the hotel with cousins while Alex stayed with us.  Early the next morning we met back at the hotel for a special breakfast.

After breakfast it was back to the house for a quick change and get to the church at 8:30 am.  Amazingly enough, we made it on time! 

After a great morning at church, we all headed back to the house for lunch and present time.  Jake may have a small thing for legos right now...particularly Ninjago Legos! 

A fun birthday cake and lego candles to make a wish on...most likely wishing for more legos!

After cake and ice cream, we got ready for Jake's Baptism & were off to the church again.  More on his baptism in a separate post.  Let's just say, it is definitely great to be eight!

After the baptism, most of the family had to leave to go back to Dallas.  Grammy and Grandaddy came over for a few moments before heading home.  Jake had a great day.

A few fun things about Jake.   His favorite color right now is blue.  He absolutely loves pie, especially chess pie.  For a special FHE for Jake about Baptism a few weeks ago,we had pie for dessert.  He was in heaven.  Jake loves legos, logic, math, planning and playing wii.  He is reading the Harry Potter series and loves it.  His other favorite thing to read right now is the Weird School Days series by Dan Gutman.  Jake has a great imagination & always has the funniest speeches in the Impromptu Speech class I coach at school.  I love to hear Jake laugh, his joy & zeal for life is infectious.  He is also a great brother, always concerned about others, especially Luke.  Jake adds spice to our family & we just love Jake! 

Happy Birthday Jake!!

Labor Day

My parents came to visit for a quick trip Labor Day week-end.  We had a lot of fun talking, eating Chinese food & playing games.  Grandpa & Grandma stayed at a hotel & everyone loved playing in their pool.  There is just something magical about hotel swimming pools!  Jake got to have a special sleepover with them & loved the extra attention.  I think most of our pictures are on Hayley's missing camera, but we have a couple from the pool.  It was a great week-end!

Random Snapshots of our Lives

'Tis the season for Bat Mitzvah's - Trevor & his friends Melissa & Jaden

Hayley loves riding her bike

Michael hitting up museums for a school assignment

Jake becoming mummified on his first day of Cub Scouts!

Luke and his buddy Lexi...before the squirel bone treat :)

Back to School

Summer went by way too fast, and before we knew it, it was time to get ready to go back to school.  We couldn't start without squeezing in a Back to School Brunch with our friends the Saturday before school started.  What better way to wrap up the summer than with friends, homemade cinnamon rolls & games of spoons.

We had our annual Back to School FHE & new family theme for the year. This year we based our theme on 1st Timothy 4:12 - "Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity."  We had school supplies with notes exemplifying ways we can be a good example in these different ways at school.  Like a glue stick w/note that says, "STICK up for kids that are being teased", a notebook w/note that says, "Take NOTE of kids that feel left out or sad", etc.  It was a little different than past year's themes, but a fun use of everyday school items that may occasionally help them remember these important things as they use the item at school.

We started off the first day of school with a breakfast reminder to treat others you meet the "write" way with some yummy pencil pancakes.

Time for a quick photo shoot before school starts.

Luke had his pirate friend over to help keep him company on this first day of school.  It was a great distraction from being left behind as everyone left him for the day.

After school we gathered the troops and headed to Baskin Robbins for our annual back to school ice cream, redeeming the free ice cream scoops they had earned at the library.

We ended the day with a FHE of Father's Blessings for the new school year and ate some tasty pencil sugar cookies. School is now in session!

End of Summer Beach Trip

Fire

It was an ordinary late afternoon in August at the house.  The kids avoiding the 100+ degree weather & were in the midst of our end of summer Harry Potter Movie Marathon.  I had just turned on the oven, preparing for our dinner guests to arrive in about an hour.  Then the ordinary turned a little strange.  The power started flickering and then went out on one side of the  house.  I went out to check the fuse box and was about 6 inches away when I stopped, smelling smoke.  As I looked around, I didn't see anything but as I started to reach for the fuse box again, I stopped and looked up and saw the power line was on fire.  Yikes.  I ran into the house and grabbed the phone to call 911, while yelling at the kids to get out of the house.  We happened to be dog sitting & watching our neighbor's house so I sent Michael & the kids over there while I waited for the fire department. 

I had been on the phone with the dispatcher, watching the fire on the power line inching towards our house, when all of the sudden the power line flared up, sparking flames everywhere, into the large oak tree and onto the dry grass. Luckily nothing else caught on fire & within 10 seconds there was a small bang and the power line snapped, flew into the air & wrapped around the other line running to the house. It was still on fire, but just a slow burn at this point. The snapping of the power line ended all power to the house & the phone went dead. After waiting for what seemed to be forever but was really just like 10 minutes, we heard the sirens and the fire department pulled up along side our house.

 

The firemen were great and took care of business pretty quickly, although they were not real excited about the power lines being on fire...I totally understood :)

 

I had called Don at work on my dying cell (of course it wasn't charged!) and he had called the power company. Just a little tip, if the fire department comes, they also call the power company and with their call you get bumped to the top of the list. So I guess there are perks to having the house catch on fire!

Once the fire department had put out the fire and put up the caution tape, I remembered that the missionaries were on the way to our house for dinner.  After a quick series of texts, they just came by and picked up the uncooked dinner to cook at their place.  I promise I don't normally burn down the house when I make dinner! 

Then the power company came out pretty quickly to assess the situation & restore power.  After about an hour and half, we got power back.  We also found out the cause of the fire. 

Turns out occasionally squirrels will chew on the power lines.  Not quite the harmless cute little creatures we thought they were!  After that adventure, we finally had power but a hot house & no dinner.  It definitely was time for a little Chick-fil-a splurge!

Fast forward 2 months.  We were dog sitting again (different dog!) and this time the dog was in the backyard with the kids.  All of the sudden I hear Hayley calling me.  The dog had been back in the bushes near the fence & and had emerged with the bones of the fried squirrel.  Eeeww!!