Saturday is a special day

As the primary song goes "Saturday is a special day because it was the day we got ready for Cole's blessing." Ok so that doesn't exactly fit the tune of the song but hey, it's the best I could come up with.

On Sunday, which just happened to be our 8th anniversary, Jeff blessed Cole Royal. Why we always time having children when we have the 9 am is beyond me but we made it on time.

Now I'm sure every father gives nice baby blessings, but Jeff gave Cole a beautiful, unique, and extremely touching blessing. Not the typical things I seem to hear in most baby blessings. He also gave Pearl a beautiful blessing. And each time I forgot to bring some tissues or even a burp cloth for him. I don't want to embarrass him, but it's the only times I've ever seen him get emotional about something. It just makes my heart melt to know he loves our kids so much that he'd tear up over them. In both of Pearl and Cole's blessings, Jeff spoke about how important it was for them to know how much they were loved both here on earth and by those who have passed away and to have a desire to treasure their families and ancestry (not in those words though). I just loved hearing this because it was important for us to give our kids names that had meaning behind them. He also blessed Cole's eyes to have vision to see the beauty of this earth, his bodily organs to have strength to do the Lord's work, and his mind to be wise. I am so blessed to have a husband who loves his children as much as he does and who is worthy and willing to give them a blessing.

After skipping out on the rest of church, we came home for a feast. Pearl was very excited that her baby brother was finally getting his own party, with a "birthday" cake. She thinks every party is a birthday party apparently. It was nice having everyone there but I was sad my Grandpa couldn't come since Cole is named after him. I knew we only had about 3.7 seconds to get pictures before Cole really started screaming for his lunch so these are the best we could do. I know Pearl treasures her pictures with her family and I'm hoping Cole will feel the same way someday.Someone please tell me my face isn't that fat still! I'm blaming my brother who took the picture.The Men... Jeff's Dad, Jeff and Cole, my Dad, my Grandpa AllenJeff's parentsMy parentsMy Grandma and Grandpa AllenMy Grandma just loves the little "man child" as she's dubbed him.

Since "Lavernius" as Jeff calls him (Lavernius Cole is some NFL player... I don't know who he is) was more interested in eating and napping on all the grandmas, we didn't get any pictures of just him. So on Monday I decided to try a little photo shoot with him. It wasn't until the last second possible before rushing out the door for church that I decided on an outfit for him. We knew we would bless him in one of the kimono outfits we had but Jeff wanted brown (Cole is very handsome in browns) and I wanted white. Obviously he ended up in white... I just thought he would look like a little angel all dressed in white with that blonde hair. Plus I was in love with the teddy bear on his butt! It sort of went against everything we both had said about blessing your kid in these expensive wedding gowns (we blessed Pearl in a blue dress) but I couldn't help myself. I think the results speak for themselves, even if Cole was NOT happy to be getting back in his church clothes!

Take one (pre-screaming and feeding)This is my absolute favorite picture!Ok, so maybe this is also my absolute most favorite picture!
Don't you just love this teddy bear butt? Take two (post feeding and now napping)
Take three (post nap and pre 2nd round of screaming)
He's rabid... he's foaming at the mouth!Not sure what this smile is all about.
Obviously he's bored and done with this whole thing.

I just can't get enough of my baby boy! Jeff's prayers were answered because he prayed for a strong and beautiful baby and that's exactly what we got!

Allergic reaction

Apparently Pearl is allergic to mosquito bites. At least that's my conclusion after seeing what happened over the 4th of July weekend in Bear Lake.

Things started out fine. Our gracious campground host (aka my Dad) helped Jeff set up camp on the lawn while I gave my brother Kurtis and his friend Zac a hard time for coming to the lake just to listen to their music and nap. You'd never seen a happier camper than Pearl who was literally bouncing off the walls (or air mattresses in this case) with excitement that we were finally at the beach!But like all of our first summer outings to Bear Lake the weekend proved to be a cold, windy one. You would think I'd finally get smart and pack long sleeves, pants, and jackets to keep us warm but no, I refuse to believe it will be cold again at the beach. Those tenting it (Jeff and Pearl) woke up at 4 am freezing cold because someone insisted on sleeping with her best friend, in his sleeping bag. Basically that meant neither one of them had any covers. Cole and I even got cold in the trailer but I'm pretty sure we stayed a lot warmer than Jeff did. He's never once complained about being cold in the tent. You know, "I'm a man" sort of attitude. But after the first night, he added a trailer to his wish list for his mid life crisis.

With the lovely wind we broke out the kites. I don't know how long Pearl was down there flying her kite, because I was feeding Cole, but I'm guessing it was quite awhile. She seemed to be having a great time and her kite flew fantastically. I didn't get why she stood there with moving her arms up and down the whole time but it kept her happy.
I think this trip we were pretty much loaded to the gills with supplies. Jeff was a good sport about it when I kept pointing to more piles and saying, yes this needs to go too. We even packed up a pool, slip-in-slide, and playground to keep Pearl and Ruby entertained when we weren't at the beach. Now if anyone has been to Bear Lake you know how absolutely freezing cold the water is. Now imagine you are a kid who is just dying to get wet and your only option while the family unpacks is the pool which has just been filled with said freezing water. What do you do? Well, if you're Pearl you just go for it and slide right in! But if you're Ruby, you slide down as slowly as possible, stopping at the edge of the slide and then stick your feet in. The whole situation was pretty funny considering Ruby is usually the little dare devil and Pearl is the whimp.
We did eventually make it down to the beach on Sunday. Emily and I took the little girls down to explore our options for where to put our towels. Again, it was super windy so we told Pearl and Ruby that we would just go down for a few minutes then come back up to the trailer, eat lunch, and then go down "for real" with swimming suits. We should have known better. Not only did we think this, but we ended up stripping them down to just panties because they couldn't stay out of the water.
We started back up our long walk when we saw Jeff trudging down with Cole, who had refused to take a bottle. The twit wouldn't take one all weekend! Even my Dad tried to get him to cooperate. I thought his technique was quite ingenious and probably would have worked had Cole not heard my voice and I would have left him for another few hours. I just don't get why my kids hate bottles. It sure makes life interesting when you have to plan everything around a two hour feeding schedule, since Cole prefers snack on me instead of getting really full. Needless to say, I spent most of my time at Bear Lake doing this.
By the time Emily, myself, and two soaking wet, freezing cold little girls made it back up to the rest of the family, my lazy siblings were finally awake from their three hour naps. Sure, now they want to go to the beach. So we sent the girls back down to play while we stayed behind to watch them tackle each other in the water, collect sea shells, and play. I'm pretty sure this same scenario plays out each time we go to Bear Lake. And each time Kimmy gets wet. Day two at the beach brought the wind again. I left Cole with Jeff to hang out in the shade - poor Cole, he didn't make it to the beach once with the wind - and found myself lucky enough to not get thrown in the cold water. My dad told everyone that Cole didn't need his lunch frozen... thanks Dad! It's pretty pathetic that the only tan part of my body are my feet. Seriously, these lines give no indication to the whiteness just inches away. Someday, someday... Pearl chased Kurtis up and down the beach trowing water on him from her water bottle. She also collected an entire bucket of sea shells with Ruby which we HAD to take back with us. Then the wind decided to have some fun with us and not only blew all of our towels down the sand but picked up one of our inner tubes and before we knew it, that tube was half way across the lake! It was crazy! Pearl was screaming and freaking out because the tube was gone and kept telling grandma that we had to go buy another one TODAY!
Then she realized she had to protect her precious goldfish crackers from blowing away. I finally got her calmed down when I started throwing the crackers on my sun bathing brother, who then threw them at Nick. My dad ex-nayed the fun when the sea gulls decided they wanted in on the action. We left Jesse, Kimmy, Nick, Kurtis, and Zac on the beach while the rest of us headed back up to get warm and start dinner. Apparently they got bored because they built a sand woman... to scale. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the motorboat action.

Back to the mosquitoes... the picture really doesn't do it justice for how swollen and miserable Pearl was after three days post attack. I felt so bad for her because they must have itched like crazy! Luckily we have a walking pharmacy with Nick and he doped her up on Benadryl so she could keep playing.
So despite the itchy legs, arms, and eye, the wind and cold, and "4 star" accommodations we had a great time! Next time we'll be sure to pack warm clothes, bug spray, and let's hope some four wheelers! Oh and BTW, Emily and Jesse are expecting! Yeah! Another cousin and eight months apart from Cole just like Ruby and Pearl! Next year Cole will be walking (hopefully) and we'll have another baby up there!