Saturday, March 3, 2012

8 is Great!

When did my tinny little baby turn into my big, handsome, stubborn, excited, and sometimes crazy eight year old?  This has been a wonderful birthday week.  To avoid being talked into multiple birthday parties, I've learned my lesson with Caleb, I insisted on having his party on his birthday this year.

He was so mad at me when I told him that he couldn't have a big theme party.  I agreed to let him invite three friends to go bowling.  Of course he snuck in a fourth friend and finally became became satisfied with bowling.  What more could a kid ask for?  Really, Caleb would ask for the moon!

Andy sat by the cake all afternoon waiting for Caleb and his friends to come home from school.  


Caleb's friends were so cute and generous.  He invited Maggie, Will, Isaac and Matthew.  I forgot the camera when we went bowling, but they all seemed to have a good time.  They were so cute cheering for each other.  Caleb won by a landslide which also made him happy.


Caleb was so happy!  Josh and I gave him a pogo stick.  I guess that is the going thing in the neighborhood right now, but the best gift he got was from Gabe, an iPhone 3.  It works as an ipod touch because it won't make or receive calls or connect to the internet.  For Caleb all he really wants is the hand held games and music.  I feel like he gets too much screen time as is, but it is nice to have one more "reward" for my bag of tricks to get him to do his homework.


Today was Caleb's baptism.  Josh and I were both excited, and hope that the Gift of the Holy Ghost will help him to make good decisions.  I have no doubt that Caleb will be a wonderful adult, that is if he makes it to adulthood.  His energy is almost more than I can stand.  He wants to go go go even at the expense of being obedient.  It doesn't hurt to hope for a miracle right, that his desire to be obedient TO ME (he is good for most others) will be strengthened. 


He was baptized and confirmed by his dad.  Josh did a great job.


I spoke.  Is it prideful for me to feel like it was good?  My topic was the Holy Ghost and I made the analogy of joining Heavenly Fathers team and that they Holy Ghost is like the coach.  I had to ask Caleb and the two other kids to "look at me" 3-4 times during the talk, but I really felt the spirit while I was giving it.  I know that this is the most important team he will ever join.


We had our core group of family support for the day.  My parents and Josh's parents came.  Merle, Cody, Steph, Connie, Colby and Danny were here along with April and Ethen.  It is days like this that we sure wish that Cathie's family with the majority of the cousins lived close.  It is a good thing when Ethen is available.


His grandpa's Lonn and Neil were the whiteness.  In the confirmation circle was Josh, Lonn, Neil, Cody, Colby and our friend, a member of the bishopric, Scott Findley.


My mom had her second knee replaced on Tuesday and checked out of the hospital for a few hours to come and then went back to the hospital after dinner.



We had a feast of ham and baked potatoes after the meeting.  Celeb got set of scriptures, and was very happy.  The day was perfect.




4 comments:

The Ravsten's said...

Yeah! I wish we were in the area too to enjoy the cousins. June will be so much fun. Congratulations on what looks and sounds like a perfect baptism. It's wonderful. You look great too. Love you tons. Love, EM

Cathie said...

It sounds like a perfect day! I am sure your talk was fabulous. It makes me laugh because during Colter's I gave the talk on the Holy Ghost and kept asking him to look at me - 3 or 4 times! I would like a copy of your talk. I wish we were there too. XOXO

Brad Jones said...

Carrie -
I loved reading this post because it gave me hope for my 8 year old. He too is constant energy that I struggle with channeling. He too often chooses play over the "right thing". It's hard! Although the other day I had an 'ah ha" moment. One of the primary presidency asked me to share a story for sharing time. She asked me to share a story about me, or one of my relatives or ancestors - when they made a right choice. I thought: easy enough. My parents made a book for Josh when he turned 8. It's called "stories to learn from" and it has a bunch of stories from when they were kids. I thought, I'll just pull one of those out and use it. When I pulled it out and started reading through it- they stories were all about when they had made a "bad" choice. Then I got to thinking about a story that I could tell and most of the stories that I thought about were again "bad" choices. I made this comment to Brad and he said, come on - are you telling me you've never made a right choice? But it DID get me to thinking. ...why do we remember the bad choices? and I realized it is because those are the times when we learn the most! It also made me realize that I can't take those learning experiences away from my kids. They too need the chance to learn the hard lessons - the ones they will remember into adulthood.
Sorry that was soooo long. Anyway, thanks for reminding me that my boy is just like other boys his age!

Camille said...

PS - that was really Camille not Brad - someone was logged into my computer without me knowing it.