MIA April 2013

Wow, do you think that baptism took a little bit out of me or what?!  Okay so really I have just been running around after 4 busy children and life never slows down so at the end of the day I usually just lay in my bed and read a book and fall asleep.  But alas it is time to catch up!  So here we go....

At the very end of March, actually over Easter weekend, Garrett and I (and the munchkin of course) got to sneak away to Vegas for an early 30th birthday celebration.  My amazing sister in law Danielle came down with her 3 kiddos and watched all six of the kids so we could escape.  Jordan stopped in for Easter but he had to be back in Provo for school the next day.  She was awesome!  Before we left we had a small Easter celebration with them so we wouldn't miss out on all the fun.

 We did an Easter object lesson with symbols in eggs and then let the kids do the candy hunt.

 It was fun to have cousins to hunt with.

 Happy kiddos with their loot!

Skyler and Beck both got cool new sunglasses in their easter baskets.  After the morning festivities, we hit the road!

Anyway, it was so nice to just walk around and shop with only one baby in tow.  It cracked us up how every person would stop us and tell us how cute Dallas was and ask if he was our first and then to see their eyes grow huge when we told them we left the other three at home!  Somehow they look at you like your crazy after that:)  Oh well.  Drew and Terry hooked us up with some amazing tickets to Shania at Caesar's Palace.  It was so much fun!

The pics are blurry because they are phone pics taken by a stranger.  Anyway, we had great seats and Dallas was amazing.  He especially loved the horse that came on stage a few different times.  

I have always liked Shania and she was really amazing.  After the concert when we were driving back to the condo I read a little bit about why she fell off the face of the earth for a few years and it made me have so much respect for her!  She has been through a lot and she is just a classy lady.  

Of course the main events on our trip had to revolve around food so after attending a nearby ward for Easter Sunday, we hit up the Bellagio Easter buffet.  It was ridiculously good as usual.  They had some extra fancy things for Easter brunch like banana hazelnut french toast.  It was awesome.

So to walk off the million calories we consumed we walked around the gardens in the Bellagio.  They always do such a beautiful job in there.  It is definitely my favorite of the casinos.  

Beautiful

Then it was off to view the fountains 

 And of course we had to show Dallas the glass flower ceiling.  Every time I see this I think of the amazing glass blowing factory in Murano Italy that I got to go to on my senior trip with my parents.  They are beautiful.

We didn't take a whole lot of other pics on our trip but some of the highlights were shopping at H&M(for me at least, this wasn't so exciting for Garrett), eating at John Mull's bbq and roadkill grill(if you ever go to Vegas, you have to take the time to try this place.  It was on Diners, drive-ins, and Dives and it did not disappoint!!  It was Garrett's favorite thing of the whole trip), walking the strip, stocking up at Trader Joe's, and just being together and taking naps whenever we wanted to.  I know, we are super boring but we have four kids and they make us tired.  We were very excited to go home to them though!!

Baptism Day!

 Leading up to the big day we had lots of fun with the Albrechts.  Too much fun in fact.  

This is how I look when I go to bed at 2 AM the night before and then have a million things to do the next day.  Luckily I had tons of help getting everything ready for the baptism and the bbq after.

On Friday Jordan and Abby and their families came down to join the party.  The boys were having lots of fun watching March Madness.  They actually were quite helpful even though this picture would suggest otherwise:)

 When Skyler arrived we had the trio of spideys running amuck.

Here they were trying out their flying abilities.  

Luckily, everyone calmed down and managed to be quite reverent for the main event.  Rylynn was so excited that her baptism day had finally arrived.  She has been counting down for over 3 months.  Literally.  Every day!  It was really neat for me when I was braiding Rylynn's hair into a crown braid because I still vividly remember my Mom doing the same thing for me on my baptism day.  

These are all the wonderful friends that came to support Rylynn.  Annie and Elisabeth Vaughan, Angelie Lundhall, Sara and Brinley Harr, and my cousin Sara's daughter Alethia.  She felt very loved and supported.

Our little family!  We were all so proud of Rylynn.  She set such a great example for her little brothers.

Aunt Abby gave the talk on baptism and then Garrett performed the baptism.  Uncle Jordan and Aric were the witnesses.  Luckily Uncle Jordan spotted the little toe that poked up out of the water so Rylynn got to be dunked twice!  I will never forget Rylynn's face as I went back to help her change.  She looked at me with so much excitement in her eyes like she was about to cry and said, "Mom!  I just got baptized!"  She said she felt so happy and she looked so bright and beautiful.  

After Rylynn changed we had all the kids sing "When I am Baptized".  Rylynn wanted all her cousins, brothers, and a few of her friends to sing with her.  Annie and Elisabeth and Angelie all sang too.  The kids all did a great job.  Rylynn's piano teacher, sister Stuart played the piano for us.  

Aunt Danielle gave the talk on the Holy Ghost and then during the confirmation Beckett decided he had had enough excitement for one weekend.  He actually fell asleep sitting up but we laid him down so he would be a little more comfortable.  The members of the circle were Garrett, Jordan, Aric, Bishop Carter, and Brother Harr.  Garrett gave Rylynn such a sweet blessing and talked about the example she was setting for her brothers as well as those members of our extended family who are not members of our church.  It talked about how special of a daughter of Heavenly Father that she is and how much good she will do in the world around her throughout her life and what a great missionary she will be.  

This is the beautiful quilt that Nana made for Rylynn.  She makes these for all her grandchildren and Rylynn couldn't wait to get hers.  If you look closely you can see the Rod of Iron leading to the tree.  The fruit glows in the dark and the back of the quilt is super soft white fabric to remind her of the gift of the comforter.  We were so sad Nana couldn't be there to give the holy ghost talk and present Rylynn her blanket, but having it on display made us think of her.  We actually skyped my parents in so they could see the whole baptism.  No one knew since we just stealthily set up the lap top on a chair and had the computer on mute so you couldn't hear them or see them.  It was a bit of a miracle that they were able to see the whole thing since I really wasn't able to spend more than a few seconds setting up the computer.  They saw and heard everything though.  I'm so glad they were able to be a part of this amazing event in Rylynn's life.

This was the little table with the programs as you walk into the room.  I had to put tulips on the table since they are Rylynn's favorite flowers.  The programs have a picture of a garden gate on the front of them.  Rylynn picked these programs because her theme she kept saying leading up to the baptism was, "number 8, open the gate!"  We had been talking for months about how baptism was like opening the gate onto the path back to eternal life so when she saw these programs she got so excited:)

Here is all my wonderful extended family who were in attendance.  My cousin Sara and her kids, my Grandma Allred, Abby, Danielle and Jordan and their cute kids.  We were so lucky to have family living close by for this special event.

This was the back table where we had notecards set out for people to write a message or testimony for Rylynn while she was changing.  She got some really sweet messages that she will treasure forever.

Great Grandma and the baptism girl

The Albrechts. We are so glad they live close enough to come!

 After the baptism we went over to the park near our house and had a bbq while the kids played.  We had yummy pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw, frog eye salad, chips, and the kids favorite part, soda!  You can tell that my kids never drink soda because they kind of go crazy when it is around.  We also had costco cake and cookies for dessert.  

Garrett brought the baseball equipment so the adults had some fun too.  

It was such a great day and we are so proud of Rylynn for following the example of the Savior and being baptized.  

Baptism dress!

A few months ago my Mom told me about an idea that she had heard from a friend and I loved it!!  It was to take my wedding dress and turn it into a baptism dress for Rylynn.  I immediately thought of my amazingly talented friend Jessica who used to make wedding dresses.  Luckily she moved to Layton so she was able to turn my dress into the most amazing dress for Rylynn in time to surprise her for her birthday.  

I picked up a bookmark with the poem "My Three White Dresses" and had her read it.  Then Garrett came out with the dress behind her.  She was so excited!!  Then I explained to her that it was my wedding dress turned into a baptism dress for her and she was totally amazed. It was so much fun for me to see a miniature version of my dress on my daughter.

She tried it on and said she felt like a princess.  Then I had to send it back up to Layton for the finishing touches.

Then Jessica came down for the baptism and we had so much fun taking pictures of Rylynn in her dress.

 This was one of the ones we had on display at the baptism.  It is my favorite!  It was Rylynn's idea to take some pictures of her twirling.  They turned out so beautifully!

I love how well you can see the detail on the front in this one.

This was another one on display.  I love it!

I had to include this one with Samantha:)  Eden and Maya brought a white dress and shoes for Samantha so she could match Rylynn on her baptism day.  She even got to attend the baptism!

This one was on the table as you first walked into the baptism room.  I love Rylynn's expression in this one because it is so her.  

 This was the last one on display.  She was a really good sport about all the picture taking but she is not a fan of modeling!  I am not so sad that my daughter has no interest in a modeling career:)  I love the flowers in this one!  

Here is Jessica working her magic.  She is amazing.  My sister in law Danielle has always wanted to do this for her daughter too so she brought her dress down to the baptism so Jessica could look at it.  Thais is getting baptized next year and she can't wait to see what Jess comes up with for her dress.

Rylynn on her baptism day with the dressmaker!  We loved having the Albrechts here for the special weekend and the dress was so special for Rylynn and me.  It was such a fun way to pass on a dress full of so much meaning to my daughter on such a meaningful day in her life.

We're getting excited...

It's Great to be Eight

For the past year Rylynn has been asking to have a pottery painting birthday party.  I didn't even know if they had a place like that in Saint George but I promised her I would try to make it happen.  Luckily they did have a place and it turned out to be such a fun birthday party!

 Each of the kids got to pick one larger figurine to paint or a few little ones.  They all did a great job painting!

Rylynn is my vanilla girl.  She is not so into chocolate so originally I was just going to make a vanilla cake but then I saw this oreo cookies and cream cake in Food Network Magazine and I had to make it for her.  I added the paint brush and pallet to go along with her art theme.  My tips are all in storage still so the writing turned out pretty terrible but she didn't seem to mind.  It had white chocolate buttercream frosting and crushed oreos in the middle too.  It was pretty delicious.

 Rylynn has made so many great friends here and they all knew exactly what Rylynn loves: Art projects!  She got tons of art stuff and has loved having fun projects to do all month long.

 Dallas is such a huge hit with little girls:)  They all had to take turns holding him during the party.

 We decided to play truth or dare while we were waiting for the parents to come pick up.  All the dares seemed to include drawing mustaches on faces.  These girls are so goofy.  

On Sunday we had a family party with Rylynn's favorite dinner.  She chose crispy lemon butter tilapia, mashed potatoes, peas, corn, rolls, and jello salad made by Great Grandma.  Then we had a chocolate pudding cake with raspberries and blackberries for dessert.  We had a great time celebrating with my cousin Sarah and her family and my Grandma.  This was such a huge birthday for Rylynn.  She had been counting down the days since she turned 7.  I still can't believe she is already 8.  She is such a great example to her little brothers.  She adores holding Dallas and is a big helper to me.  Her favorite colors right now are aquamarine blue, purple, and green.  She loves to read but doesn't love math so much.  She has been singing in a primary choir and is getting so good at piano.  Most importantly, she has such a strong testimony and takes every opportunity to be a missionary like her Nana and Papa.