Homemade Goodness

I'm not going to lie. 

We are starting to panic that summer is coming to an end and we still have a big bucket list. We just couldn't let summer fade without homemade ice cream!

Girl Stuff

The big day FINALLY came. Abizella got to take out her studs and put in real earrings! We celebrated by going to Claire's and stocking up on some bling for back-to-school!

In other girl news... we have continued our Saturday morning run at the beach!!! I wish I could start every morning with this ray of sunshine!

Summer Feet

I just found these happy summer feet on my camera. They are Tadpole's feet.

They remind me of these happy summer feet...

Also Tadpoles, but 5 years smaller. I love these cherry stained feet. This pair of tootsies have been my computer's desktop ever since that happy summer.

Sunday Stroll

After all these celebrations, we still hadn't had a proper birthday cake for Tadpole, and nobody was denying themselves Cold Stone Peanut Butter Cup cake (with the possible exception of Boo, who is allergic to peanuts).

 It's been a pretty great birthday. Tadpole needed a little time to consider the perfect wish for the coming year...

And the perfect ending to the perfect day is a sunset beach trip with our favorite peeps.

We are so grateful to be part of these ladies' summer tradition!

And speaking of Summer traditions.... we gotta have one of these for 2015!

Andie was right, Pops and I needed a beach pic together!

And a family pic too!

This may be my favorite ever picture of Tiny... I love her gleeful spirit.

We spent a lot of time combing through tide pools looking for sea creatures...

Baby Starfish!

The smallest baby starfish of all time!

We were all major fans of our five legged friends.

Superkid found some old East School friends, they re-connected just in time for middle school to start.

A beautiful sunset to seal this in my memory as one of the best days ever.

Baptism Boy

Tadpole turned 8 on August 15th and he got baptized on August 16th.

We've been talking about this day for a long time. I love how Tadpole thinks everything all the way through. A few days before the big day, he was pondering immersion. He asked me if his knees popped out of the water if they would still have sins in them. 

This kid is a thinker.

We were all thrilled to share this amazing day with him. Pops performed the baptism, Little Chief gave the opening prayer, Superkid gave a talk on baptism, Abizella sang and gave the closing prayer and I gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. I was so proud of everyone. I forgot to prep Little Chief on the what to say for the opening prayer, but his prayer was perfect for the situation and straight from his heart. Superkid gave a wonderful talk filled with brotherly wisdom and kindness. Abizella sang her heart out. Tadpole has a pretty awesome family.

We were thrilled to have our cousins come too!

They are 3 for 3. They drove from Rhode Island to MA for Superkid's baptism, drove from Colorado to Utah for Abizella's baptism and flew from Colorado to MA for Tadpole's baptism. We love them forever for being here with us today!

We got some sneak shots of the girls rehearsing before show-time.

Abizella and Boo sang like angels.

Tadpole was REALLY happy to have his pal Zach there too! Tadpole sat right next to Zach when it was Zach's turn to be baptized and Zach returned the favor when it was Tadpole's turn.

A great deal of consideration went into the food for Tadpole's post-baptism luncheon. He wanted cookies. Lots of them. And fudge. And Brownies. Lots of those too.

We broke up the chocolate for the rest of us with sandwiches, chicken salad, grapes, chips and rice krispie treats.

Tadpole wanted to make sure his friends Hannah and Sam were invited too!

YUM!

The inseparable ladies...

Our friends the Stones (Hillary played the piano too!)

Sister Lauretto is Tadpole's amazing primary teacher.

My good friend Sister Condon

Sister Thomas and Sister Clay

Zach's mom, Fawn

Our Home Teachers, the Schoepef family.

Tadpole asked our good friend Joe Andrus to be a witness to his baptism.

We love Joe and Holly!

He also asked Brother Sugarman to be a witness to his baptism.

When Tadpole found out that there was a Brother Sugarman at church, he freaked out. "Mom. Do you know that there is a man at church who is literally named Brother Sugarman? And he gives candy to kids!!!" Let's just say, Tadpole is a major fan. If you look closely, you can see Tadpole concealing a specially prepared bag of Jolley Ranchers from Bro. Sugarman. He never disappoints.

Tadpole, we are so proud of the awesome kid you are and the good choices you are making!

Great to Be Eight!

The big day FINALLY arrived- Tadpole's 8th Birthday. 

He is our family early-riser. He worried for days leading up to his birthday that he wouldn't sleep a wink. He didn't get much more than a wink, because he was up bright and early to start working on that birthday list that our in-house party planner (Abz) created for him. First on the list was his dream breakfast-

Blueberry Buckle!

He even made it!

How sweet it is!

The mail brought a birthday card from Glama!

With another of his favorite things- CASH!

He and Pops slipped away to the movies while the rest of us dashed off to Costco for lunch and to grab party supplies for Tad's baptism.

Then onto Tadpole's favorite dinner- Panera Broccoli Cheese SOUP! 

Oh ya.

Next, the serious business of opening presents.

All of the kiddos like to take a trip to the store with their allowance to pick out a gift for the birthday kiddo. Nothing is more heart warming than giving the perfect gift!

Jaws thought it looked like fun too!

Tadpole loved his new shirt so much that he ran upstairs for a quick wardrobe change.

Tadpole we absolutely adore you! Let me count 8 ways:
1. You were born with clever wit. You always know the perfect thing to say and the perfect delivery. People continually come up to me to tell me funny things that you say.
2. You are incredibly creative. You currently are obsessed with building Combiner Transformers out of Legos. Each Transformer comes apart into 5 mini transformers that have 3 modes: limb mode, vehicle mode and robot mode. It is really quite the engineering feat.
3. You are perceptive about your environment. Not only do you notice things that others miss, but you question and reason with brilliance.
4. You are a bike riding champ. You love the freedom of hopping on your bike and cruising the neighborhood. I get it. I love riding bikes with you.
5. You are the center of our family, our wonderful middle child. Everyone loves playing with you.
6. You are a spiritual giant. You have a gift to see the big picture. I recently bribed you kids to memorize talks for a candy bar. You came to me and said that you knew the candy bar was not the real the gift. The real gift was learning about God and feeling his love. Even I lost sight of that.
7. You are obedient. If I ask you to do something, you do exactly what I ask. If I ask you to take the silverware out of the dishwasher, that's what you do- take all the silverware out and leave behind the plastic cooking utensils. You have taught me the value of being specific.
8. You have  a tender love for your mother. You are not too big to crawl into bed with me on the weekend for a morning snuggle. You always come up with incredible lists of things that you would never trade me for. You say that you love me more than I love you- but that is not the case. I love you forever and ever. You make my heart melt. I know that I got the best one when Heavenly Father sent you to me.

Happy Birthday Tadpole!