Birthday Baptism!

Clark was so ready to get baptized!  He loves church and following Jesus Christ!  We were so thankful for all of the friends and family that were able to come out!  Now that we are almost done with kids turning 8, we have lots of older helping children to fill out the program!  

Sandra and Ella shared playing the songs and interlude music and Grandma Whitmer was the chorister.  Talmage and Grant gave talks and Mhari and I gave prayers.  

It was a nice quick service :).  We love Clark and are so happy for his choice to follow Jesus Christ!

This one was too cute not to share!  Lorna loves her older brother!

Grandma Whitmer!

The Big 8!

We celebrated Clark's birthday a day early... because he chose to be baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on his birthday :).  We had a nice party with family, and even the grandparents made it in town in time!  Clark loved opening all of his presents and eating his cake!  Clark is a sweet boy and loves to play!  He loves his siblings and cousins!  He has lots of friends at church and co-op!  Everyone thinks he is amazing, which he is!  Even with reading struggles, Clark doesn't let anything stop him!  We love you Bigness!

His own set of scriptures!

All of the presents!

Wish time!

Handled!

Once our cabinets got installed we needed to add the handles.  It took a bit of time to decide on a handle and then to buy enough of them.  We were also concerned about how to drill the holes to make them uniform.  I found a sturdy plastic guide off Amazon to help me get the job done.  The guide was super great because it made it to where I could do all of the handles by myself!  I surprised Jeff when he came home and saw so many handles installed!  Unfortunately, the first guide broke about half way through the project so I had to return and and get a new one.  After that everything went pretty smoothly.  We have lots of handles now!

Sugar and Spike!

Sandra and Bree both wanted to play volleyball this spring.  We signed them up with the YMCA and asked for the girls to be on the same team.  That meant that Sandra played up in age since the age bracket was 13/14 or 11/12.  That was hard because this was her first time playing.  The other problem was that there was no one available to coach the team ;(.  Tiffany stepped up to do the job so the girls could play.  I volunteered as her assistant and volleyball season began!  

We had a few girls who had played before and were good.  Otherwise we had a mix of newbies and some still learning.  It was great to see them learn and work together!  Sandra got more consistent with her serves and even able to go up to spike the ball.  It as a huge learning experience for Tiffany and me.  I think everyone had a good time and Sandra still enjoys volleyball :)

11 Year Old Scout Camp

This year for 11 year old camp we spent the first 2 days at Rose Park in Mansfield.  The overnight was at Loyd Park at Joe Pool Lake.  We had 10 boys and they had a great time.  This camp is always so hot and this year was no different.  Everyone survived the heat which was good.  My awesome counselor, Sandi, was out of town so I had to run the camp this time.  I will say I missed her a lot, but nothing too crazy happened.  

One benefit of running the camp is getting to volunteer my kids as camp helpers!  I even got Jonathan to come down one day and teach a couple of classes.  Ella and Bree even came to get some service hours.  I am so grateful for all of their help!  It sure makes running events easier when there are good workers helping out!  

 After lunch it was so hot and just the perfect time for a nap.  Both Monica and Dolores took a short cat nap, but I only got a picture of Monica :)

Talmage fusing the end of the rope.

Of course when you are busy being good workers there has to be time for fun too!  Monkeys in a tree!

Bree is not a tree climber!

Sandra got a large scrape on her leg when she fell playing frisbee.  Silly girl!

I always enjoy the end of camp the most... all of the hard work accomplished!

Our last Cub!

Clark got to attend Cub Scout Day Camp this year, since he's turning 8!  We are about to enter the world of Cub Scouts again.  It was lovely to have a 3 year break, but Clark has been eagerly awaiting this day!  He is so ready to be out and about enjoying all of the amazing things boys do as cubs :)

Summer Swim!

This year we didn't do 6 Flags passes so we aren't attending Hurricane Harbor and all of the fun water slides.  The kids had gotten burned out last year so we decided to enjoy our own pool this year.  We got new water toys (something we have to do every year) and the kids were off playing!  I love that they get in there and swim!  It is really fun to have the cousins so close to get to come swim so often too!