Juliet's Blessing

The same weekend Maggie was baptized, we had the opportunity for the grandparents to participate/witness in Juliet's blessing. She was given a name and blessing by her father for the records of the church. She is still Anna Juliet Gordhamer and a joy to her family. She looked beautiful in her dress on Sunday. (She has been a lot less fussy lately, and I must add these past two nights has slept 10+ hours! My kids all start pretty average weight at birth, but they gain it really fast when they are born and shoot up to the 90th+ percentile in weight. This certainly has its advantages )

Joseph with a lot of weddings to pay for.

Maggie's Baptism

Maggie was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on February 20th. She looked very beautiful in her white dress. She was calm but excited for this day to come. We were so lucky to have both Grandma and Grandpa Larsen and Grandma and Grandpa Gordhamer here to celebrate this special occasion. It was a crazy Saturday morning with Xander's final soccer game and then the baptism. In the morning, I happened to be in charge of the treats for the soccer game and trophy "ceremony." Then at the baptism, I was playing the piano, speaking, and providing all the refreshments too. So I had a lot on my plate, however I was pretty organized and had most of it done days in advance. As it turns out, despite all my careful planning, I did forget one somewhat important thing for the baptism: towels. I greeted a dripping wet Maggie in the bathroom with nothing to dry her off with. Maggie and I had a good laugh about it as she stood under the hand dryer and I patted her with paper hand towels. Joseph was pretty wet as well and took awhile to join us back in the chapel as you can only

imagine how many hand towels it took for him to dry off. Overall it was a really nice afternoon.

I hope they call me on a mission . . .

. . . when I have grown a decade or five.

Joseph's parents arrived in Singapore last week to start their mission here in the Singapore mission. They will be serving in Sibu, East Malaysia on the island of Borneo. We are so excited that they can be here close to us and serve the Lord for 23 months. They stayed with us for 10 days before heading off the Borneo. We will see them every 3 months as they have to come here for a visa run.

A day at the school

I had the chance to go to the school the other day to spend some time with the big girls. They are always begging me to come but with 3 little ones at home, I can't seem to get up there as often as they or I would like. The occasion this time, however, was Abigail's presentation of her biography box on Florence Nightingale. She had worked hard for weeks putting it together, researching on the internet and in the library, and typing up her report, learning all kinds of interesting things about Florence Nightingale. I was proud of her work and glad to be there to watch her share the final product of her efforts. Abigail is a very diligent and consciencious student and we are grateful that she is doing so well in school.







After spending time with Abigail, I went to Maggie's class to have lunch. Of course I had the baby with me and she was an instant hit. Maggie had a moment of popularity pushing her new sister around the playground, however she wasn't too happy about it. Maggie doesn't enjoy crowds or attention too much. Juliet didn't seem to mind though.

Xander finishes soccer

Xander just finished his first season of soccer and we are proud of him. He wasn't exactly passionate about it, but he enjoyed himself and had fun with the other kids. Joseph was the assistant coach too. All in all, it was a great way to spend a Saturday morning. And Xander is pretty proud of the trophy he got for participating on the team "Shooting Stars."

Happy Birthday Maggie!

Maggie celebrated an important birthday on February 8th this year (and Abigail kept reminding us all that it was her "golden birthday" turning 8 on Feb. 8.) I guess she was pretty impressed with my abilities in cake-making when she saw Ella's horse cake awhile back. She spent months planning and talking about the butterfly cake that I was going to make her. So I managed to pull off another cake, and she had the most fun decorating it with candy and frosting.

One thing we all love about Maggie is that she has the greatest expressions. You can't help but see pure joy on her face after opening a make your own kaleidoscope kit. She also got a set of scriptures for her upcoming baptism.

Happy Birthday Abigail!

Abigail celebrated her 10th birthday on January 18th this year. I know this is rather cliche to say, but I can't believe 10 years have gone by. We have a marathon of birthdays in our family, starting Nov. 30th with Ella, then Juliet in Dec, followed by Abigail and then Maggie a few weeks later and Joseph in mid Feb. I guess winter is a good time for babies in our family. This year, Abigail wanted to try something creative for her birthday cake: birthday waffles. We made a chocolate cake mix and cooked it in our waffle iron. Then everyone got to put on their own toppings which included frosting, chocolate syrup, sprinkles, ice cream and whip cream. Putting 10 candles on Abigail's waffle was interesting but we did it. It turned out to be really fun and so yummy.