Serena's baby blessing and Ang's birthday

It was exciting and momentous to buy her first of three white dresses, and I was thrilled when this day of her blessing arrived. (It was also her debute in church.) Present at the blessing were my parents, Mike's dad, the Stibitz and Gerz families, and in the circle were Andy Coy, Dave Christensen, Dale Coats, Mike Ashton, Todd McGladrie, Tim Markle, and Mike Coy for the blessing. Mike said in the blessing (Josi took notes): You have already brought immense joy not only to your brothers, but to your mother and father. You bring sunshine to our lives. You have been blessed so far with healthy development and health. We bless you with a long and relatively pain-free life. Heavenly Father loves all children including you and your brothers. We bless you with protection and with the guidance of the spirit. We bless you to make wise choices in your friendships, career and decisions that will influence your family. We bless you to be a faithful, loving and fulfilled mother. We bless you to be faith-filled and learn the gospel in primary… Develop patterns early in reading your scriptures.. We bless you with growing faith.

I'm so grateful for the Priesthood that my husband holds and the blessings that were given to my daughter from Heavenly Father. She has definetely sweetened our lives and we look forward to a lifetime of new experiences and memories to scrapbook! After Sacrament meeting, we took some pictures, then came home to start the Open House. It was a bit crazy-there were about 60 people in our little house, but we were grateful to all who came. We love our friends and family and were thankful to celebrate this special day with everyone. My mom My dad The Ashtons with us-look at all those kids! Family friends- Nancy and Ron Wagman The Nardellis (I babysat Ganon last year-he's so big!) The Coys (minus Andy and Ewan-Ewan had the croup)

The McGladries-I think this is a good picture!

The Markles

Paige and Eric Sweitzer (high school friends)

The Stibitz and Gerz families (my aunt and cousin)

The Christensens

The Bowmans

We also celebrated Mike's graduation from the masters program. I was so proud of his accomplishment I wanted to have a party for him. Only he was too modest to have a seperate party so we combined them. The blessing and Open House also happened to be on my birthday which I thought was cool, but still my friends and family celebrated on several other days to make me feel special. Last Saturday my mom and I went out shopping during the day. Later my parents brought dinner from Genova's and this cake. I love chocolate cake! My mom bought me a new pair of jammies-I can't tell you the last time I wore jammies! (I usually just wear sweats or a t-shirt.)

You can see in the backround the gifts from my sweet husband and the kids. Even though I told him not to get me anything, he still spoiled me with a new outfit (not maternity clothes!), earrings and a nice bag. Even Elmo (our guinea pig) went in on the card from the kids!

On Monday we went up to Harrisburg/Hershey to get family pictures taken and spend the day together. I got to go to a scrapbook store, we went to Isaac's for lunch, and then we took the boys to Build-A-Bear in Camp Hill. Hayden already has a bear so he just wanted to get some accessories.

Jamie wanted to take me out for breakfast on Tues. for my birthday. So we ventured to Starlite Diner with 6 kids! They liked looking out the window! On Weds. the girls (me, Jamie, Jess, Jane, Kelly and Sarah) went out to see 27 Dresses and then to Friendly's for some sundaes. Kelly insisted on paying for mine as a birthday treat.

My good friend from high school Amber came down on Friday to see Serena and she brought these beautiful tulips along with lunch from Isaac's.

So I can officially say that I was completely spoiled for my birthday this year! I feel so loved! And I was happy just having a baby girl to dress up on my birthday!

Are you waiting for pictures of Serena?!

Great Grandma and Grandpa Weikert

Great-Grammy Thomas (my Mom's mom)

My boys

I haven't forgotten about my other children. They are still amazing. Hayden has been doing some cool things lately. First of all, he is just so excited about reading, writing and spelling. He works on it all day long. He just had an assessment with his teacher and he was advanced. I don't think we could have said that about him in the summer. He loves reading chapter books and is getting interested in classics like Peter Pan and Swiss Family Robinson. He likes playing with pirates right now too. And he is amazing at crafts. I will include a picture later of a train he made out of cardboard boxes-complete with a fire escape, coal, a chimney and smoke coming out, and a place for the worker to climb out of the train to collect more coal. Connor is very cute and is smart, just still not talking yet. I will meet with a person from Early Intervention tomorrow to talk about a speech therapist. I know he could talk if he wanted to, he's just being a skunk! I'm hoping we can start on the potty training soon too. This whole two kids in diapers thing is for the birds! They are both still in love with their little sister and are willing to help me out with her all the time. Connor has his moments, but whose to say if it is jealousy or just being two! Most of the time they do a good job playing together.