X's Baptism

X-man was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on Saturday. He knew when he turned 8 he would be old enough and have the opportunity to follow Jesus Christ by being baptized. We talked to him about baptism being a special covenant, or 2-way promise between him and his Heavenly Father. He thought about it and prayed about it. He wanted to be baptized. He was so excited.

T baptized and confirmed X. I am so thankful he has the priesthood and can use that authority from God to bless our family! X and T dressed in white to symbolize how baptism washes our sins away. X had to be immersed in the font two times, because he had a floaty toe that kept popping up.

Walking hand in hand. 

We love our X-man and are so proud of his decision!

Happy guy with his special baptism book that Bumma made for him. 

X-man's grandparents came to celebrate this special occasion.

It was a happy day.

The kiddos loved the playing, snuggling, wrestling, joking, and spoiling they got from all sides!  

Boys, Boxes, Tanks, and Robots

We have had school projects rolling in lately. L. had a Vehicle Night and needed a vehicle for it. He chose a tank. X-man has been working on a research paper on Robots. Part of the assignment was to make a "product" of your research subject. We eyeballed our boxes, got some paint,  I donned my trusty glue gun (Glue and I are friends--much more than a needle and thread), and went to work. 

 X-man ready with his boxes. 

 Got paint?

 TJX-Lab the Robot

(X-man figured out how to use the boxes and what colors to paint them. I love the head! Do you get the name of the robot??  X-man thought that up too!)

 L. has his license to drive his tank...and a lollipop.

 My!  Tanks do get dusty and dirty. 

Nothing a good vacuum can't clean up.

 Or a car wash. 

 Doing a load of laundry. 

Enjoying the wide-open blue sky in his tank.

His teachers made all the stores for Vehicle Town. There was a bank with money, a candy store, carwash, etc. So fun and cute. 

A little glad the projects are done...for now. 

X-man's Spacey 8th B-day

 Space Rocket

Meteor

 Moon

 Commander of the Mission 8 Crew 

(and the BIRTHDAY BOY!)

Mission 8 Crew

Blast OFF!

X-man celebrated his 8th birthday with a Space Party!  The crew had to successfully fly through the solar system, decoding clues from each planet (including Pluto. So there scientists!). They landed on Mars and found life. Each member then created a fast-flying space craft for their new-found alien.

Those fluffy things are the aliens. 

 Once the space craft was completed, the crew tested their fly-ability.  Impressive!  The crew was hungry, so they stopped off at a space station for some space discs (pizza), asteroids (cheese blocks), orange space rods (carrots), crunchy craters (chips), and Tang.  They later got a slice of the moon (cake). Unfortunately while docked at the space station a meteor storm blew up. The crew had to quickly find all the meteors (trinkets covered with a baking soda dough and dried) and deactivate them before they blew holes in their space ship. They gathered all the meteors and put them in a deactivation solution (vinegar). The core of each meteor had a trinket (I got rid gifted a bunch of bouncy balls!).  The last mission was to refuel the rocket and get it back to earth without getting hit by asteroids (wads of paper my girls happily chucked at the rocket flying crew). We sent the crew home,  excited, wild, and hyped up on sugar.

We had a BLAST!  X-man, being our calm, quiet guy, got a little over-whelmed with the noise (I did too!). I think he was glad to land on planet Earth again. I had so much fun planning the party, but I must admit relief that we just do big parties on 8th, 12th, and 16th b-days. We get a break for a few years. Whew!

Jump Start Your Day

I had my kids. I had my list. I had my head. Ready. Start. Go. Except for the start part. This morning we all piled in the van to  rush--the speed limit--to school when the car wouldn't start. It had been acting funny yesterday, but I quickly made a note to tell T and then forgot the little note-to-self.  I went inside to think of how to get the kids to school. We could walk. It's lovely weather, good exercise, not too far.  Then I called my next-street neighbor to see if she had left with her kids. No answer.  Then I thought to pray. So I knelt down to ask for help. I had just finished my prayer when my phone rang. It was my neighbor, and she was right in my drive-way!  She saw I had called and was just going by my house, so stopped.  She ran my children to school, even though she'd already taken hers, and came back to help me jump start my car. We were both novices at that, but her car dealer husband walked us through it over the phone. We were both pretty proud that we jump started a car and didn't blow anything up!  

So lesson learned:  need to jump start your day?  Have you tried prayer--FIRST?!  It's a sure way to have a smooth ride or at least a ride that gets you places!