One o'clock church

This Sunday our time for church is moving to 1pm instead of 11am. 1pm church is tough for a lot of people and for a lot of reasons. Ours:

(How about some "church-themed" pictures to go with this post? Hmm?)

Henry is a snazzy church-dresser. And he's a stinker, playing in the gym when he should be in Sunday School.

1. Henry won't take a nap on Sundays and I'm imagining that going to nursery is going to be even more difficult for him since he'll be extra over-tired.

2. The biggest question in our minds is how we're going to work Sunday dinner with Rob's family, which is an hour and a half away. Realistically, if we were to go to dinner Sunday we wouldn't get there until 6pm. To then leave again after a couple hours for the long drive home? Not preferable.

 Dad is home from meetings and ready for church, Henry is just getting started.

HOWEVER:

1. Henry is better than most toddlers at missing a nap. And besides, he doesn't like nursery anyway, so it's not likely to make too much of a difference! We'll figure something out.

2. Maybe we'll replace Sunday dinner with Saturday dinner + sleepover + Sunday breakfast. We love staying the night at Rob's parents' place! We'll figure something out.

Cool guys headed to church on Maui. Church shoes optional.

Our poor Bishop must have had a lot of complaints because he asked our Stake President to speak to our ward last Sunday about the move to 1pm. I'm so glad I wasn't super vocal about not being happy about the change. We did mention to him that Sunday dinners with family would be hard and even though it was hardly a complaint and definitely no blame was placed on him or anyone else, I regret even saying that. Since hearing from our Stake President I've decided to have a good attitude about the change. AND GUESS WHAT? There are plenty of great things about 1pm church that I'm looking forward to. Here's what I've thought of so far, including some plans we have:

• Rob's meetings are still in the morning, but he'll be home a few hours before church starts. I'm excited to have him there to help with Henry and to just be with us every week (instead of every-other).
• I can make a fun and yummy Sunday breakfast. I won't do it every week, but once or twice a month would be fun. And yes, I've just started a Pinboard for this very purpose.
• Our mornings will be slow and free of chaos. Lots of time for reading scriptures and church magazines. Lots of time for playing with Henry. Lots of time to watch church movies. Lots of time for facebook serving others.
• We can hold our family council Sunday mornings instead of Sunday evenings.
• I can hold my meetings Sunday mornings instead of using up a week night.
• The less-active sister I visit teach might be more encouraged to come to church because it's easier to get to at that time.
• We can go on a leisurely family walk.
• I can take a really long shower.

Baby Henry ready for church.

So, I'm getting super stoked for this Sunday. I'll be back again next year to talk about the move to 9am church...

Looking Back: Portland Weekend

My cousin, Kassondra, got married over Memorial Day weekend in a tiny little town in Oregon. It was a beautiful wedding, I'm so glad we went. We made a long weekend out of it by staying in Portland. While there we visited friends, ate great food, and then stopped at Mount St. Helens on the way home. Fun fun time!

The awesome wedding location: The Historic Balch Hotel in Dufur, Oregon.

We spent  a lot of time at the wedding taking pictures of me and Henry.

 And of my Handsome Husband and Henry

 Back in Portland - we met up with the Hall Family.

Mmm, let's just take a moment to look at the most memorable meal from our trip - breakfast at Pine State Breakfast. A gooey fried chicken and fried egg sandwich (this sandwich is pictured at the top of the link) and an andoulle corn dog with honey mustard.

Then dinner with the Mellor Family. Trying to force another toddler hug.

This was mine and Rob's first visit to Mount St. Helens - it is so so cool! We were told that it was very rare to get the view we got of the mountain because it's usually not as clear as it was this day.

Secret: This Marriot hotel where we're eating breakfast not where we stayed. We stayed at a different Marriot about a half mile away. Our hotel didn't serve continental breakfast, so we took a little stroll down to this hotel that we had stayed at the last time we were in Portland in order to eat the breakfast there. We felt okay about it since they're both the same company (and since we had stayed there before, we knew the food was awesome and we knew just what door to walk through that would make it look like we were legit).

Jenaca's Bridal Shower

My good friend Jenaca got married last week - I'm so excited for her and grateful I was able to show my excitement by being at the wedding and by helping to throw her a bridal shower weeks before her big day. I wanted to make it a special party, so I mustered up all the creativity I have (read: I copied lots of ideas) and helped to create this:

 

 

One last picture of the bride-to-be (now bride):

Some quick Henry pictures

From October 27, 2012. Just shy of 18 months.

Maui 2012 video by Rob

Hooray, the video of our Maui trip is complete. And wonderful!



Return to Maui from New Land Media Works on Vimeo.


Now, how can I manage to go back again next year?

Looking Back: Henry's first birthday

Henry's birthday involved small celebrations, but he got to have three of them! The first was with Rob's family. I made cupcakes (I got uncharacteristically creative with these) and Henry was able to celebrate with, not only the cousins and other family he loves, but with new friends (Lee and Lisa... and OLIVE) too!

Yep, these are cute.

 

The obligatory watch-the-baby-get-messy 

 

Henry and Olive: fast friends

 

Next was May 2nd, Henry's actual birthday. No big to-do on this day, just a day of some of his favorite things: pancakes for breakfast (we Skyped his aunt Monica and uncle Jachen during breakfast, so they were the only family to celebrate on his actual birthday. What an honor!), library, mall play place and... that's all I remember.

Dad surprised Henry at the library's story time! He was supposed to be at work then all the sudden walked in!

 

Getting a stamp at the end of story time.

 

Then, the third celebration was with my family and some of our closest friends. No cute cupcakes this time. We celebrated Cinco de Mayo the same time, so here Henry is enjoying a gluten-free cupcake. Mmm. No, he's not gluten-free, but I wanted him to have a cupcake rather than a "pile" of tres leches cake that the rest of us ate - better for pictures.

Henry opening presents.

 

Rob, demonstrating a mask similar to what Henry got for one of his gifts.

I felt bad at first not doing a bigger celebration for Henry. I knew he didn't care, but I wanted to "mark" the importance of it by doing something more grand. In the end, what we did was perfect. He got so much love and attention by those he loves which is all I really cared about! Now that he's almost 18 months, I already can't believe how little he was when he turned just one! We love our little boy!

Camping

This past weekend was our ward campout at Cascade Park up in Granite Falls.  As luck would have it, it was also the same weekend as Stephanie's parents campout so we all decided to go up a day early and camp together as a family.

Henry loves being outside so camping was pretty much heaven for him.

There were many bats to be played with.

My partner in crime in her camping gear.  Henry wasn't the best sleeper while we were there, but this girl can totally roll with the no-sleep punches with the best of them.

On Friday, all of the boys went up to the archery range.  I soon discovered that my brother-in-law Mark is pretty serious about his archery(notice his own compound bow that he brought).

But not as serious as me.  See that whistle, that's for me taking command on the archery range.  You'd better watch out.