Sylvie’s 6th birthday

Sylvia had her first ever friend birthday party this year! She had a swim party at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. It was really hard to decide who to invite, and since it wasn’t at our house (and she wouldn’t tell me who she wanted to invite), we didn’t invite too many girls. She kept telling me, “Just call my friends’ mom and tell them to come.” We invited 8 and only 3 showed up (but they also had their families with them), so we had 17 people total. That was plenty! We did a mermaid theme, so they made crowns and got leis to wear. They went swimming, we had hot dogs, veggies, chips and watermelon for lunch, and then the big, huge cake! She opened her presents, and 3 hours later-we were done. I didn’t get a picture of the kids swimming. She had fun and wasn’t even aware that only 3 friends came-she had a great time. Thanks goodness we have a Grandma and Grandpa who let them have parties at their house!

Early gift opening from tia Yesenia and Aunt Tami.With her best bud MarisaWith Marisa and one of the twins (?) Not sure which one since they are identical.That’s a big piece of cake!Elsa and Anna from Grandma!

All the girls (Marco was there, but didn’t want to get in the picture). Marisa, Sylvie, Maddy, Lucia, Gilly, Delaney, Tessa.

Fun times with cousins

We had a lot of fun with our cousins in August. They came out especially for Marco’s baptism, but we got a lot of play time in too. I didn’t get any pool pictures this year!

Marco’s baptism

It was such a special day-not exactly how we planned it, but it turned out better. We had attended another baptism that morning and the Ward mission leader told us we could not show the slide show of Marco during the intermission time between the baptism and confirmation (we did show it after the service). I was in a little panic, but we found a beautiful clip on the life of Christ that totally brought in the Spirit. I also had the opportunity to bear my testimony, which I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. Grandma and Grandpa gave beautiful talks on baptism and the Holy Ghost and Aunt Tami provided the piano accompaniment. We sang the Baptism Song and I am a Child of God. Uncle Dan and Uncle B gave the prayers. After Marco was baptized and we were listening to Grandma give her talk on the Holy Ghost, Julio and I looked over and saw Marco wipe away a  little tear. It was so precious. After the baptism, we served refreshments-donuts, crackers and cheese and fruit-Marco’s choice and very popular with the guests! But, since there was another baptism scheduled, we felt kind of rushed out of there and didn’t get much of a chance to visit with everyone. We did go outside and got some family pictures. It was a wonderful day and we’re so grateful to have such a good boy who chose to be baptized.

Marco got some gifts from friends-including a CTR ring from Sister Myers-our surrogate grandma/babysitter.

Sister ByrneI didn’t have the camera most of the time-so we didn’t get a lot of pictures after the service.Sister GianiMarco with his friends Matthew and Sharlee.

They wanted to do an action shot!

Beautiful cousins!

I need to get the pictures of the whole family from Tami and Dan! They used the timer on their camera, so we didn’t get any of those.

Marco’s 8th birthday

Marco had a big birthday this year. The Aldama’s came for the special occasion. It was so fun to have his family party on Sunday-the day before his birthday. He got new scriptures, backpack, Perry the Platypus and a new bike from us! (he had sold his old bike at our garage sale). He got an elephant and a blanket from the Aldama’s to “never forget the warm feeling he has on his baptism day.” Grandpa and Grandma got his the Lego Movie and he got fun toys from other family members as well. We had a great time-the kids played outside, we had a yummy dinner, and we played party games. A time to remember.