Theo Snuggles, Boat Races and friend/family Get-togethers

Everyone wants in on the Theodore Snuggle action, especially Max. I often lay Theo on my bed in the mornings while I change in or out of exercise clothes, or get ready in the morning. Invariably Max comes in too and tries to hold Theo or snuggle him or throw a soccer ball at his face. True story. 

Our newest Archibald cousin, Davis Crandall, was born exactly 7 weeks after Theodore. Davey boy wanted in on some Theo cuddles too.... we could just tell. 

Alec, Chris and Max tested out a fun family activity and then were so excited to do it again as an entire family: Boat Races in the little creek alongside Lions Park just down off the hill. We made boats out of paper plates/cups/duct tape and other recycled material. Then we launched them into the creek. Alec volunteered to be the boat rescue-er and waded in the water to rescue and relaunch any boats that got stuck... and they all got stuck at some point. This was a really fun activity despite Freddy's meltdown at the beginning. Alec was able to pull him out of it with a clever silver lining.

We got invited to the Browns and Felts (friends from our Stanford days) and some of their mutual friends Caramel Apple tradition.  Again, living in Utah gives us the chance to connect with friends from our past. It was a late night but lots of fun. We ate soup and bread and just talked while we dipped apples in caramel and chocolates and various toppings.

And then the next day we got together with some Betteridge cousins: Emily and Ryan and their baby Heidi, Carli and her kids, Ben and Vanessa and their daughters, Hannah, and Caleb, Tiff and her kids, Jordan and Estefi and my little family. It was really windy and quite chilly all of a sudden so we were a little unprepared but the kids could care less about it and we managed to scrounge up some blankets and jackets from our car. There were so many babies and kids running around and it was just delightful for me to see some of my favorite people ever.

School Carnival Fundraiser

The kids' school, Freedom Prep Academy holds this big fundraising carnival every fall. We helped contribute to some of the baskets they were going to auction off and we bought wristbands for the kids to participate in all the games. They had a rock climbing wall, a ropes course thing, a ninja course, a train ride, a petting zoo, a dunk tank, hair painting, a gym full of bounce houses and a gym full of carnival games: like ring toss on 2 liter bottles of soda.  They also sold dinner, and desserts.  Gwen and Chris were particularly interested in the silent auctions of the baskets. We kept checking on them throughout the night and ended up coming home with 3.  It was a pretty memorable night and a successful fundraiser (if our spending was any indication of others!) 

Speaking of Community events, we drove up to Herriman to watch our cousins perform in the musical, School of Rock.  We've always wanted to support them in this yearly youth production and now we live close enough to go!! We love it!

First Smile!

I could tell Theodore was soooo close to giving us his first real smile. He just looks at me with such focus and understanding in his eyes. I was kind of worried that he wasn't smiling yet because I wasn't smiling enough at him! With the rough few weeks with the kidney stone and with Max testing the limits and the stress of living in someone else's space, I probably don't smile enough!  So today, I thought I'd give it a serious attempt at smiling. This morning after giving the 3 younger boys baths, I sat on my bed with the camera ready and smiled away. 

Freddy wondered what was going on and he came over the join the party. (Notice Max destroying my breast pump in the background....which ended our smiling session for the morning)

I gave Theo to Freddy so I could help save my breast pump and turned around to see Max joining the party.... Max-Style.

After everyone got home from school I decided to try again. I sat on the couch and encouraged Theo to smile. Max heard me say "Smile" over and over again and he obliged by facing my direction and saying, "Cheeeeeeeeese." haha.

And then it came!! A smile slowly spread across Theodore's adorable face:

Oh its so precious!! He is so precious, and chunking up pretty well. :) Pretty soon, I'll have my typical squishy cheek, round and solid baby.

Theodore's Blessing

Theodore received a name and a blessing on Friday night. We had a double blessing with my sister, Tiffany, for her little baby, Tessa, born just 1.5 weeks before Theo. We wanted to have the blessings when our parents were in town. It was lovely to have so much family around for it. I was a little worried that having it on a Friday night would be hard to keep a reverent atmosphere but it turned out so well. I think having so many people wearing Sunday clothes, and setting up lots of chairs so people could be seated really helped. We started later than we wanted due to some traffic accidents on the freeway so the kids were all pretty tired but everyone held up well.

We sang an opening song and had an opening prayer and then Chris blessed Theodore, followed by Todd blessing Tessa.  Here are some favorite parts of Theodore's blessing: Theo was blessed with the ability to understand the gospel, feel the truths and live them; that he'd be given a healthy and strong body and the spirit to master body and accomplish his mission on earth and serve others; that he'd develop charity at a young age; that he'd bring peace to others around him; that he'd look up to his brothers and sister and learn from them and offer inspiration and counsel to them; and that he'd quickly find the covenant path and have a deep and abiding ability to feel the love of his Father in Heaven and Savior.

It was a tender blessing. I also loved watching Alec cradle and take care of Theodore during Tessa's blessing.  The kids all love our Theodore Bryce so much, as do Chris and I. After the blessings we had cookies and milk. I made my good friend from Mississippi, Sharon Leigh's, Soft Molasses Cookies, Peanut butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, and my high school friend, Sandra's Aunts Snickerdoodle cookies that Gwen calls, "Snip-a-dee-doos".  Everything was delicious.

We recreated a picture we took together right before Tiffany had Tessa:

Shout out to my cookie helpers: Max and Freddy. 

Soccer Games and S'mores at the Ridge

 Grandma and Grandpa Betteridge were in town for Amelia's upcoming baptism and Theo and Tessa's upcoming blessing. They had about 3 days at the Ridge before then to get it ready for winter. We went up and joined them for dinner and s'mores one night. We got up there kind of late because Alec had a soccer game, but there was enough daylight to walk around the property a bit, measure space for a mini cabin and swing on the swing a bit. As we walked by Grandpa's new tractor, Alec asked if he could drive it and to all of our astonishment, Grandpa said yes! So Alec climbed in and drove it backwards and forwards a bit.  It was kinda scary to see my 12 year old son behind the wheel of a big new tractor, but he did great and listened well.

It got dark pretty quick and was getting late on a school night but we still roasted marshmallows over the fake (propane flames over fake coals) fire since there was a ban on real fires with embers. I LOVE going up to the Ridge and enjoying some raw nature. 

It has been fun to watch Alec play soccer for his Middle School team. The coach and 85% of the team are hispanic. Alec says he sometimes can't understand the coach... and when I went to their first game and heard the coach speaking in Spanish half of the time, I can understand why!  I'm proud of Alec for sticking with it, even though he doesn't enjoy it as much as he thought he would (losing all of their games so far, is tough!).  It has been nice to see the coach trust Alec more and more by giving him more playing time.  The rest of us try to not yell encouraging commands (since we know this bothers Alec) and just cheer for the good. Max likes to run onto the fields, and Theo squints in the bright sunlight while Gwen, Charlie and Freddy play on nearby playgrounds or fight over who gets to kick our one soccer ball.

oh Max...

Oh, Max. One of the hardest things about living at Grandma and Grandpa's house is Max.  I don't think enough products even exist that could babyproof a home for Max. He has a special talent for quickly finding exactly what he shouldn't in any room/situation and doing something to create a disaster with it.  We need to buy like 8 baby gates just to safely contain him downstairs... and even then I'm sure he'll figure out how to microwave metal cars in the microwave. (which he did).  He especially loves to play with water, drop full rolls of toilet paper in the sink/toilet, and eat toothpaste with anyones toothbrush. 

 So when one Saturday morning I couldn't hear or see Max for a few minutes I worried about what I would find whenever I found him. I eventually noticed his blonde little head in the garden outside. He had grabbed an old spun honey bucket that he'd seen Freddy and Grandma use to pick raspberries, opened the door, walked out to the garden and was picking raspberries! When I got closer, I was reminded of Blueberries for Sal, as he had just one lone raspberry in his bucket, red juice all over his lips, and within a second that lone raspberry was picked up and popped into his mouth. Oh Max. What a cutie.