Great to Be Eight!

This spring Michael and Emily both turned 8 years old. In our church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that is when children can be baptized. Both were looking forward to this important opportunity. We coordinated dates so that family from out of town would be able to attend....

Grandparents Maggie & Cy Higgins drove out from Utah; grandparents Brenda & Elliot Haroldsen flew out from Pittsburgh, and Jen's sister-in-law, Mary Haroldsen, flew in from Oklahoma. (We wish all of our siblings could have come but jobs and such wouldn't permit such a grand reunion this time....)

Michael and Emily dressed in white for baptism

In the LDS church we believe in baptism by immersion; those to be baptized and the person performing the baptism dress in white. After being baptized, the participants are given a special blessing confirming them members of Christ's church and granting them a special gift of the Holy Ghost to guide them in their lives. In the United States most baptisms are in small fonts in normal church houses. Baptisms are held separate from other church meetings, with friends and family in attendance. There is usually a small program with a couple talks and some songs and such.

Michael and Emily each chose a favorite song for the program ---- "When I Am Baptized" and "If I Listen with My Heart" --- and they decided to ask their Sunday School teachers, Ami Donich and Katie Sura, to give talks. Sister Donich spoke on baptism and reminded us that as baptism washes us clean from sin, the atonement of Christ is what makes this all possible. She assured the children that although we all still make mistakes, the atonement allows us the opportunity to repent and Christ will make things right. Sister Sura spoke about confirmation and the Holy Ghost. She reminded the children about the things they've been taught about the Holy Ghost --- that he is a special messenger of Christ and speaks to our hearts in many ways... He can guide us in decisions, warn us of danger, and comfort us during tough times.

Emily and Natalie also wanted to perform a special song (and Esther had to be in on the action, too). They love the song "O My Father", especially the arrangement by Sally Deford which sets the lyrics to the tune most commonly associated with "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing".

(Grandpa's Camera battery started complaining so he only filmed the first 2 verses --- this will take you to a lovely mp3 of the whole song as sung by Becki Madsen)

Michael and Emily were baptized and confirmed by their father (Matt), with their grandfathers, Cy Higgins and Elliot Haroldsen standing as witnesses. While the participants were drying off and getting dressed, we played a DVD of some of the kids favorite "Mormon Messages" videos. I think the audience only got to the third story or so, but the full playlist is on my YouTube channel.

The whole evening was wonderful. We're so glad so much of our family, many of our friends from church, and a couple of the kids' friends from school came and joined us. We really appreciate Jan Fannon for playing the piano for the event, Gayle Donich for interpreting into sign language, and for voicing (from sign language) for Ami Donich's talk, and Laurie Ellsworth and Melinda Boschi for providing refreshments after the meeting. We have the best friends and family!

We are so proud of and happy for our Amazing Duo!

Ben's first Month

Little Ben was born in the middle of May and I still haven't put together and sent a birth announcement... Anyway, here is a little album of Benjamin's first month:

School Review

Just for fun, I had Mike, Em, and Nat help me put together some "smilebox" scrapbooks with pictures from the school year. Results follow...
(**Note: if pages are going by too fast/slow, there are generally control buttons towards the bottom of each presentation that will let you pause,go back, etc.)

Natalie's 1st Year of School

Natalie went to half-day 4-yr-old kindergarten this year and Loved it! (Her teacher, "Mr. K" is legendary at Hoover) Be sure to check out the video clips of her singing after the first day of school and the class dancing/singing on their last day....



A Snapshot of Mike's School Year

Mike had a great year in first grade. I think he/we pulled off a particularly cool set of show-and-tell's by bringing a cocoon in the fall and the resulting "polyphemus" moth in the spring! (We thought the little dude had perished over the winter but were pleasantly surprised!)



Great Fun for Emily

Emily had a wonderful time this year, too. There were only about 6 girls in her class, so the teacher really encouraged them to "stick together" and be good friends to each other....



Mom's 2 Cents Worth

I continue to be very pleased with our local school, Hoover Elementary (West Allis - West Milwaukee school district). The kids' teachers have all been excellent and the principal is great, too. I'm really enjoying being a "PTA mom", too. (I co-chaired the Reading Carnival committee and ended up mostly doing prize ordering/organization since the carnival was scheduled 4 days before I was due to have Ben!)

Needless to say, we are ALL looking forward to 2011-2012!

Emily's (Birthday) "Garden Party"

We had the idea for Emily's birthday party way back in April, and I'm very glad she didn't change her mind.... When I saw a bunch of cute little Easter hats in the dollar bins at Target, I thought it might be fun to let the girls decorate them with fake flowers, etc. Then, because we were shopping for birthday presents at the time, I realized that might be even more fun for Emily to do with her friends. So, I introduced the concept of a "Garden Party" - and told her that's like a Tea Party except with lemonade and ice cream.... The important part is you still get to "dress up"! Fortunately, she thought that sounded great --- and even more fortunately, she stayed enthusiastic about it through the ever so long months until we finally reached her Birthday!

We sent out invitations to 3 girls from church and 4 from school (2 of whom are twins, so Em got around my usual guest limit - you can have as many guests as the age you are turning). I experimented with how to attach the flowers and reluctantly settled on hot glue. (Luckily the low-temp kind held ok so I escaped without any blisters this time!) Many thanks to Julie and Cheryl for lending me glue guns!

When the guests arrived, the girls took turns playing some little card games and such in the front room and coming back to the kitchen to decorate their hats. I thought it would take me half the party to glue them, but my aunt, Jana Boschi, came to join the party and jumped right in to help! One of the little girls' grandmothers, Barb, also stayed to help, and I'm glad Natalie and Esther took an immediate liking to her!

After the hats were completed, we took the young ladies out front to play (an extremely simplified version of) Croquet. When they tired of that, we came in to open presents, and then have cake and ice cream. Then I herded them back outside to play until their parents came. I had wanted to teach them Bocce, but didn't find a set in time, so we just used the croquet balls again and bowled them at one of the posts...

All in all, I think things went quite well! (No tears, at least, which is saying a lot for 6-yr-old girls!)

Here is the little "scrapbook" we put together about the party:

This free digital scrapbook generated with Smilebox

Ready for A Grand New Adventure: School!

Well, it's official: Mike and Emily are now "kindergartners", and quite delighted to be heading off to school each day. We met their teachers at the school open house last week, and I think they will both get along just fine. They are also excited to be riding the bus, and hoped right on the first day with no worries. Fortunately, the bus stops right across the street from our house, so by winter I can just watch from the door :-)

Anyway, here's a little collage of the first couple of days. (Hit "play" of course, then when the project is loaded up, you click the different pics at the bottom to see them "full size" in the frame.)

It's Finally Em's Turn to Party!

For Emily's birthday, she had a "Princess and Pony" Party. This pretty much just meant that the girls were invited to bring their "My Little Pony"'s over to play with for a while before the festivities...


Fortunately, Em didn't request a Pony cake --- that would be a bit beyond me! She giggled and said she wanted "bugs", so we made ladybug cookies and put them on a field/flowers cake....

One of her friends, Ainsley, couldn't come, but Emily had a good time with Cassie, Emma, and Gwen. They played a while, then we went out on the back patio for cake, ice cream and lemonade. Back inside for presents, and then the girls stayed and played a while...