Time With Friends, Random Pic and Gibs' Baptism

Last weekend we got together with our college friends at Brad and Jill's new house. It was fun to see everyone (as it always is) and fun to create new memories in their new house. It's so cute now to see the older kids play together since they're all so close in age. Brad's idea for the night was to have a (Wo)Man Vs Burger competition where we all had to come up with a unique yet delicious way to fancy up our burger and then vote on whose was the tastiest. It didn't quite work as planned with busyness of kids wanting to eat urgently, but I'm pretty sure that if we had voted, my feta cheese and banana pepper burger would have won:).

The guys eating on their porch...

Us girls (of course) taking care of the kids...

When we first got there I think Layla spent the whole first half an hour just looking through their slider door at Ella and Alden. She gets SO shy when she encounters a new situation. Last week we went to Rivertown with Em and Gavin and at the end we let the kids play in the playland. Layla has never been there before, but Gavin loves the slide so we had to stop before going home. Layla just stood there watching the other kids looking completely overwhelmed by everything for awhile. That's probably a good thing as there were a lot of big rough playing kids going awfuly fast down the slide:). While we were touring the upstairs Layla finally came out of her shell as soon as she spotted their toddler bed in the extra bedroom.

She curls her tongue all the time now so we need to remind her often to stick it back in her mouth. The other day she discovered that she can make a whistling noise with it:).

I don't think I've mentioned yet that about a month ago I stopped letting her have her pipe during the day. She's only allowed to have it in bed and in the car. MOST of the time she does well with it, but there are still times when she wants it at other times. She's been having a hard time falling asleep for naps and at night this week for some reason so I think part of the problem recently is that she's tired.

This is how Gibson and Madison spent the first few hours of the evening (until we woke them up to eat). It's so funny to see carseats again at get togethers. It seems like so long ago that the toddlers were in carseats, yet 2 years ago none of the kids were even here yet! The oldest (Jonathan) will be 2 on May 1. It's amazing how things have changed in those 2 years!

One of the best parts of the night was that we got to meet Rex for the first time!! He is such a little cutie!! He makes Madison and Gibson seem really big:). The three babies really hit it off:).

Gibson (3 months), Maddy (1 1/2 months) and Rex (3 weeks)...

Here are some pics from a couple of days ago.

A pic of both of them smiling--I think that might be a first:-)...

Having fun together...

Both just slightly grinning...

Never too old for peek-a-boo:).

Her silly squinty face...this is also how she winks:). They talk about winking on an Elmo DVD and she likes to try it too.

Layla got a lambe with her name on it as a baby gift and Gibson got almost the same lambie (it's actually a different brand) in blue from Joe's mom so I recently had someone put his name on his too. Layla loves hers now and also loves his:).

Both loving their lambies...

Layla got a slight owie on her leg the other day so I put an Elmo bandaid on it--a little bit later I found the bandaid on Gibson's leg:) (they unstick and restick very easily)...

This past Sunday night we were able to celebrate Gibson's baptism! It really is a big day for the little guy, even though he obviously doesn't understand that yet. We are so thankful that he is a child of God's and that we are able to make a promise to God to raise him knowing HIM.

Our handsome little guy...

Getting his bowtie put on...

The baptism with Joe's dad helping as the Elder...

Layla has never sat in church before and she did alright but was definitely antsy and didn't want to just sit nice and quiet:). Thankfully the baptism was near the beginning of the service and then once it was done Joe's mom took her out to nursery...

Gibson did really well the entire time. He let out a little cry during the service as he was trying to fall asleep, but besides that he was either happy being held or sleeping:).

With being busy setting up for the dinner and such ahead of time we didn't get a chance to have a family pic, and then afterwards Layla was not into the pic since I had to steal her away from playing with her friends...so this is the best that we got...

The kids enjoyed running back and forth (Layla wanted Grandma to run with her--Grandma said she was getting quite tired:D)...

I love how you can see in the pic how excited they were to be running together--you can see the bounce in their step:)...

Excited faces!

The girls in thier piggy tails...

Gibson with Grampy and Gigi...

Maddy and Gibs tired out from the big event...it won't be long before they're running back and forth:)...

Enjoying the dinner...

Gavin posing by the yummy Cold Stone ice cream cake...

Joe's Aunt Jane let us use these cute lamb pots and planted the flowers in them too!

Gibson enjoyed sleeping in Great-Grandma's arms for a long time after the service...

Jill with Ella and Jamie with Alden...