My daddy came. On another note … we blessed Ray on Sunday. Both were phenomenal events. Daddy flew in on Saturday night and left Monday around noon. It was too short.

We blessed Ray at church on Sunday and I don’t know if I can adequately express the rush of emotion I felt. It came suddenly, all at once right before they blessed him. They announced we would be having a baby blessing and invited all those who were invited to participate in this blessing to come forward. It was right then, as I stood up on the end of the aisle, picked Ray up from his carseat and handed him to Daniel. I sat down and watched Daniel carry our sweet little Ray, all in white, up to the front of the chapel with my daddy following. My eyes filled with tears and a rush of emotion overcame me as I  looked on to see Ray surrounded by so many good, priesthood holders. Our friends are good men. My daddy is a good man and my Daniel is the best man. And there was little Ray being craddled in the midst of them. The scene just overwhelmed me.

I hope Ray is influenced by these men. These men who hold the priesthood power – the power of God. My favorite scriptures in the Book of Mormon are in Alma 48:11-18, especially verses 17 and 18. They describe Moroni and what kind of man he was. I believe I married a man like Moroni and I want my boys to be men like this too. I’m glad they have such amazing examples all around them.

As for the Dad visit, we didn’t do a whole lot. We just hung around, ate food and talked. I had gotten homemade pasta and a ton of basil at the Ann Arbor farmer’s market Saturday morning, so I made pesto for Sunday dinner. Our friend, Bobby, came by Sunday night, had some brownies and ice cream with us and we all chatted into the evening. On Monday morning, Dad asked if we could go to Target and get a lego set for Noah and Liam (probably because they had been talking about their favorite lego sets all weekend with Grandpa). So we did. And the boys felt like it was Christmas, in August

It was a fantastic weekend. I loved every minute. And it makes me feel grateful. It also makes me sad, because I sure miss my dad now. All in all, a great weekend.

As soon as Grandpa walked in the door from the airport Liam ran up and hugged his legs and exclaimed, “Grandpa! I missed you!”

This is one of my favorite pictures. Because it shows daddy laughing.

Sunday morning, before Ray had his white Sunday clothes on.

Here are all the after church photos:

seriously? … how beautiful is this? ah, my little men.

I can’t believe 5 weeks has gone by. It feels fast. Christina keeps harassing me about putting up more pictures of Ray, so the pictures are for her. The update is for my journal. Here’s the update on Ray:

He’s a good baby. He loves me and calms down pretty much immediately whenever I pick him up and talk to him. He seems to know my voice and I love that. He smiles a lot. He sleeps a lot too, but he’s a loud sleeper, so we’ve had a hard time sleeping at night – Daniel and I have had a hard time – Ray seems fine.

Finally, last night, we put Ray in the office/nursery in his bouncer with the monitor. And we had the best night’s sleep we’ve had to date. Ray slept from 11:30 to 3 am, then he nursed and burped and hung out with me in our bed for an hour, then Daniel put him back in the nursery and from 4-7am he slept and we slept too. It was such a relief, to sleep that is. It makes a world of a difference to sleep. Then Ray spent 7-8:30am in bed with me, nursing and burping and then sort of sleeping/grunting. I have been so worried about having him in another room because he seems so young still – and he IS young, but it worked out great. It’s what monitors were meant for. Plus, we can buckle him into his bouncer so I don’t worry about him wiggling and skwirming his way out of it.

We took Ray to park day yesterday and that was the first time he’s been to the park and seen all my girlfriends – he was a hit. I dressed him up in plaid shorts and a matching polo and he wore his little soft skater shoes. I loved it. And Ray slept through the whole thing. He did wake up when we stopped by 7-11 on the way home to get a free slurpee (because it was 7-11-2012 yesterday … free shlurpee day), but I just held him and went in. It was fine. Here is a picture of Ray after the park … it evidently tired him out to sleep the whole time:

I worry about taking all three boys around. I worry, not because anything has gone terribly wrong thus far, but because I have been in some pretty crazy situations in the past. I have seen the pattern happen before, this pattern – I think, “wow, things aren’t that bad! I can do this, see everything went well, didn’t it?” Then I feel capable and I go out again with the boys and things fall apart – big time. Crying in public, flashing a breast on accident, poopy accidents in Target with no extra clothes, losing sight of one of the boys and panicking, dropping a jar of pickles in the grocery store, breaking a keg of alcohol in Costco, watching my boys run in opposite directions and not knowing which way to go first, fumbling at doorways, threatening/bribing the boys to stop whatever it is they’re doing …. major embarassment. And the last step of the pattern? Feeling major anxiety everytime I go out somewhere with all the boys. But so far, everything has gone well and that’s something to be happy about.

Last night I was holding Ray. Daniel had been holding him for a while and he seemed fussy, so I took him to see if he wanted to eat, but before he started nursing, I just talked to him for a few minutes. It was a beautiful little moment. He looked for my face and seemed fixated on me and my voice. He smiled and made cute little baby noises and I know it doesn’t sound like a “moment” or anything special, it just was. Had to be there … and you just had to be me. It was like he really saw me and knew me and loved me. After a minute I told Daniel to get the camera. The camera, of course, does not capture what it was really like, but it was glorious. It was like heaven smiling at me. Really. I know it all sounds cheesy and like maybe I haven’t been sleeping enough lately (which I haven’t) and I know what it sounds like to hear mommies say, “he was talking to me!” even though their kid is basically a worm … but really. He saw me and he knew me and he loved me – for a few minutes last night.