Somewhere along the line, I became old enough to have 3/4 of my children old enough to be "accountable". I had a bit of a mid-life crisis in the weeks leading up to Dillon's birthday and baptism as I pondered whether or not I had done enough as a parent to prepare him for the world we live in.
My pondering took a back seat when March came along, because Dillon's birthday weekend was a big one.
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On any given morning, Dillon can be found sitting on or near a heater vent. He's done it for years,
and he's not about to stop now! |
Last year we stopped our tradition of having theme birthdays, and decided to do a family activity of the birthday boy's choice. Dillon chose to go to the park, and eat at McDonald's. Since his baptism was the next day, we had all kinds of family coming to town. Uncle Michael, Aunt Becky, Aunt Elizabeth, and their cousins Emily, Amber, and Lydia arrived just in time to meet us at McDonald's and participate in the birthday celebration. Sorry for those of you who missed it. It doesn't get much better than a Friday night at McD's when you have a million things to do. Grandma got a new trailer that day, so she was in the middle of "moving", and I still had plenty to do to get ready for Saturday.
On Saturday morning, we had a small tragedy when we found that Dillon's hamster, Roaster, had passed on.
He has been an excellent pet owner, and taken such good care of his little friend, but when your two year old brother "shares" a piece of chocolate cookie with him, there's not much you can do.
With heavy hearts, we carried on with our busy day, where Dillon participated in his first Pinewood Derby.
Dillon's car won first place overall, and both he and Caleb won in their age groups and received "Golden Tickets" to move on to Regionals.
Yeah. You read that right.
Regionals.
We have to get to pay an entrance fee to go to Regionals.
I can hardly contain my enthusiasm.
By the way, did I mention that I was called to be a Webelos leader? Without going into great detail, I'll just let you know that after I cried about it for a week, I decided to build the girliest pinewood derby car ever.
If I must be a Webelos leader, I'm going to alternate "knot tying" and "catapult building"
with rhinestones and glitter...for me.
After the derby, Grandma and Grandpa, and Uncle Ben, Aunt Carrie, and cousin Gabriel arrived.
We had Dillon's 2nd choice "Hawaiian Haystacks" for dinner, because I refused to serve Ramen Noodles to all our guests.
We were delighted to arrive at the baptism and run into our good neighbors from "the middle of nowhere", Newell and Gloria, who were there for their granddaughter's baptism.
Somewhere between the party at McDonalds, the hamster death, and the Pinewood Derby, I managed to put together my talk on baptism (I was asked by the stake the night before Dillon's birthday!). The highlight of the meeting was when Uncle Ben and Aunt Carrie played their recent arrangement of
"My Heavenly Fathers Love" on the piano and violin, and surprised us all by having Caleb and cousin Emily sing "I feel my Savior's Love" in the middle. It was absolutely beautiful, and I'm so glad it was after my talk so I could enjoy it!
My Great Uncle and Aunt, Mark and Joan, and cousins' Janalee and Gabe, who live near us, joined us at the baptism and then afterwards at our house for brownie sundaes.
We failed to get a picture of everyone who attended, but we are so grateful for the love and support of our family during these special times. It was a wonderful weekend, and I'll cap it off with one of our "best ever" family pictures. Justin picking his nose, Todd "wearing" a wreath on his head, me looking pregnant (I'm not!), and Brayden looking like he has better things to do.
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