Happy Birthday to Neal!

Cobbler for his birthday!

Notice Sophie trying to yank her brother out of the picture.

These are our kids, AFTER bedtime, looking on from the kitchen, not even pretending to get a glass of water, engrossed in my husband's nostalgic playing of Nintendo's Millipede.

Summer Fun Thus Far

holding giant, live snakes

Getting stuck

making games and doing genealogy together

concerts in the park

swimming with friends

Birthday Girl!

Celebrating another year of this awesome kid in our lives! Today she put her hand on my cheek and sweetly said, "Thanks for giving birth to me, Mom." Told her it was a pain but that she has been totally worth it!

 Spent the day swimming with friends and playing at Kid Mania.

Berry Picking

Perfect weather--in the 70s! thanks to a morning storm. We headed to Blueberry Hill (but it's Texas so it wasn't exactly a hill) and picked bushes heavy with pink, purple, and blue berries. So pretty. Nine pounds of berries later we were sitting and enjoying iced blueberry donuts.

We headed to Hams Orchards next for peaches, which we are not allowed to pick but simply buy and that we did in addition to peach ice cream, fudge, plums, and a yummy BBQ lunch. Great day!

Happy Father's Day!

Pie at church, cards and presents at home, barbacoa for dinner. Neal, the father, the husband, the man, the legend! Love him for all her represents: A family man with his own testimony of the gospel and a killer personality.

Family in Town

We were happy to have family in town to support Rhys in his choice to be baptized. It had been a year since I saw Mom because of Dad's cancer, which he recently decided to stop chemo for, and is still clear of cancer on scans.

We hit Hypnotic Donuts and White Rock Lake one morning and downtown Dallas another.

Evil Elvis: PB, bacon, banana, and Some pistachio type donuts.

Blackmail!

My mom gave my kids a picture of my disaster of a room when I was a teen! I'm sure she got a lot of joy out of doing that as I know my kids sure did. Now I just tell them that keeping tidy can be learned and I am proof, though not perfect.

Rhys is Baptized!

Eight is great! Great because this boy has been preparing and waiting for the time when he would be old enough to be baptized. He chose to make covenants to follow his Savior, Jesus Christ. We were happy to see so many of our friends and our family join us for this special day.

Neal was worthy to baptize Rhys and several of our family and friends were there to use their priesthood in the ordinances: Chris Huff, John Goode, Chad Knudsen, Carter Garvin, as well as Bishop Ed Wilson. Grandma helped with an opening prayer, and music was lead by Barbara Knudsen. Cherri Hardcastle sang Rhys' favorite hymn (and jokingly one of his mother's least favorites) Love at Home and Our Savior's Love, while he and his dad changed back into dry clothes..which I will get to in just a bit. His teacher, Lesli Huntzinger, and Chad Knudsen provided talks on baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Sophie offered the closing prayer.

Here's a memory-maker! The day before the baptism, Grandma took Rhys' dress shirt out of the pile of things to go to the baptism to spray and hang it to decrease the wrinkles (I don't iron). The fun part is when your sweet husband is getting himself and his son dressed in dried clothes and a key garment is missing from Rhys' pile.

Neal was texting me but my phone was on silent for the sacred occasion and in my purse. Kira got the text and alerted me. I stepped out and motioned to bishop to join us as we tried to figure out how to act. Neal was prepared to drive home (5 minutes total) and retrieve the shirt we'd forgot to repack. We looked through the baptism suits closet and found a few white shirts-one of which was slightly less large than the other men's shirts and decided on that.

As I reentered and as the musical number was coming to an end, I sheepishly advised our friends and family to always bring a dry shirt when their children are getting baptized and got a good laugh. He was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ and given the gift of the Holy Ghost in a shirt enveloping him and a classy tie that he was gifted by Aunt Kira.

A luncheon followed afterwards for family and friends who had traveled, with a cake, sandwiches, and chips that Rhys picked out himself for the event.

Later in the day, he pulled me to the side and said he was going to be mean to Sophie but decided not to because he was just made clean and didn't want to mess it up. I told him he was doing a good job already listening to the Holy Ghost but that the sacrament would be there on Sunday to help him renew his covenants whenever a mess up happened.

Personal touch: Legos CTR (choose the right)

Knudsens, McCreas, Wilsons (both families), Kenworthys (both families), Goodes, Adams, Oma and Opa, Grandma, Garvins, Huffs, Mrs. Lovell, Mrs. Steele, Cherri, Herrings, Huntzingers, Paramore, Turleys, Aunt Kira, Mansells

He chose the flavor of his chocolate cake and the icing colors.