Sam's First Primary Talk

Today Sam gave his first primary talk and Evan and I were both blown away with how well he did. He marched right up to the podium with his yellow paper in hand (see below) and a huge grin on his face, grabbed the microphone and gave his talk all by himself. No fear whatsoever. Evan and I had no idea what to expect, but he exceeded our expectations by a long shot. We were both pretty proud of our little boy!

Translation:

I am thankful for the scriptures.

The scriptures teach us about Jesus.

I read the scriptures every night with my family.

Reading the scriptures helps me remember Jesus.

(In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen)

PS- He also learned how to write his name this week. You can kind of see how he's written his name on his talk above. He's growing up and I can hardly stand it, but love it all at the same time!

Birthday Boy

I am amazed that in four short years Sam has gone from this to...

...this!

 

This is the first year he would let us or anyone else sing "Happy Birthday" to him. I was pleased that he actually seemed to enjoy it. Love this little boy so much!! :-)

Catching Up...

I need to post some pictures from the past few months. They are some of my favorites, but I just never got around to putting them up here on the blog. So, pardon me as I take a few minutes to blog/record the following...

This is Sam and Lauren with their good buddy Joel, pretending to be asleep. We frequently watch Joel on Thursdays while his mom is working. We love him! Last week when we were driving into the church parking lot Lauren saw Joel getting out of his car and exclaimed, "Look! Mommy! It's my friend Joel!" It's true, they're friends. :-)

Christmas 2010 was spent here at home in Seattle. Christmas Eve was spent with our Norton cousins at Maren's house. It was such a nice evening. Dinner was yummy and then the kids acted out the nativity and Sam even got to be Joseph. He loved it!

We had such a nice time with just us on Christmas morning. I love playing Santa Claus and it was so fun for me to see my kids so so so excited to open presents on Christmas morning. I felt so blessed this Christmas for so many reasons. I am thankful for my family and that Jesus was born so long ago.

The weekend before Christmas we drove to Spokane for Dallin and Megan's wedding (Dallin is my step brother). We stayed with MaLeesa and John and had a great visit with them. It was also nice because we had our first big "family" party with us and all of Alane's kids. We had a good visit with everyone and it was nice to get to know Alane's kids a little better. In the picture above, Evan got all the kids bundled up and took them outside to play in the snow. Have I mentioned what a good dad and uncle he is?!? :-)

We've made several trips to the zoo over the past few months. The kids really can't get enough of that place. On one of those trips we let them ride the carousel, except Lauren wouldn't have anything to do with it. Sam didn't have a problem with it, he LOVED it! Love his big cheesy smile!

I love this picture of Lauren sleeping with her entourage of ponies and dolls. She has all her dolls lined up against her dresser and all the ponies on her pillow with her. Evan and I frequently have to clean off her pillow at night after she's fallen asleep to make room for her head. ;-)

The first weekend in February my Dad and Alane came to visit us. It was so great to have them all to ourselves for the entire weekend! It was so funny because the whole weekend Lauren called them both "Grandpa Alane". I thought it was cute. We loved having them visit and hope they'll come back soon!

Camping

Thursday evening I went to the temple and Evan stayed home with the kids. When I came home this is what I found...

While I was gone they decided to go "camping" in the basement and Evan said they had so much fun setting up the tent, reading books in the dark with their flashlight, sleeping in their sleeping bags, etc.

I love Evan so much! He is such a fun Daddy and the best husband ever.
I don't know what I would do with out him! :-)