Grandpa came for Ray’s Blessing Day

Posted on August 7, 2012 by francescaforsyth

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.

sometimes

Posted on July 30, 2012 by francescaforsyth

Today I did not do much. I blogged about our beach trip. I took a nap with Ray on my tummy. I got showered and dressed. I made a blow out breakfast of eggs and toast with a smoothie – that was pretty ambitious, eh? And that about sums it up. I also did a lot of nursing and burping and walking around carrying Ray in one arm. Sometimes I get super motivated and do lots – laundry, play dates, outings to the sprinkler park, Costco shopping with all three boys, clean up the whole house … and sometimes days just pass like this. Sometimes I actually remember I have a 7 week old baby and I don’t need to accomplish anything but keeping everyone in the house alive and fed.

I have a pretty dirty house and stuff left out from our beach trip on Saturday. I have sand on the kitchen floor and dishes in the sink. I have run out of underwear and laundry to do. I have a pile of beach towels by my back door. The front room is a mess and my bed is unmade. It’s OK. I have to keep telling myself that today. Sometimes it’s OK to take a nap and watch “Junk Gypsies” while nursing Ray instead of getting up to clean up. Just sometimes. And today was that kind of day.

I have plans though. I got up and went to the grocery store so we had the ingredients to do grilled fajitas for dinner and to have an “Olympic Party” for Family Home Evening. The plan is to eat dinner, then have banana splits while watching gymnastics. We’ll finish the day strong

silver beach

Posted on July 30, 2012 by francescaforsyth

Well, we haven’t really done any big family trips this summer, so we decided to buckle down and get at least one beach day under our belts. Since we don’t live near the ocean, we settled on Lake Michigan. A friend of ours mentioned this awesome beach, Silver Beach, so off we headed on a 3 hour trip out to Lake Michigan to spend 4 hours there and then drive another 3 hours home. We figured, if you’re only going to do one beach day, might as well go the distance and it was worth it. We invited our friends, the Ordazes to come along and they did and it was a great rtip. Tons of fun. We liked the beach and all the amenities nearby (a carousel, splash pad, playground, cute downtown) that we’re going to try and find a beach house to rent on Silver Beach next summer and stay for a few nights. Here are more than you want to see pictures of our trip.

Alonzo

The set up. We actually bit the bullett and bought an EZ Up type tent thing. We loved it. Very useful. And since I got it at a steal for $24, it made it even better. Can you also see the little baby tent we had set up for Baby Ray?? It was super useful too. Ray was not a big fan of the wind … and sand. He’s not really a beach lover just yet, but he’s not even 2 months yet … we’ll give him some time to warm up to it.

Ray is doing some killer dance moves (or something) in the baby tent.

left to right: Alejandro, Liam, Daniel, Noah and Antonio.

Noah and Liam about to jump a coming wave. These boys were made for the outdoors.

Then it was lunch time. Here’s my favorite part of the beach stuff we now own: the little compartmentalized food containers. It’s in Liam’s lap. It totally worked like I thought it would. I always have a hard time bringing food to the beach because sand gets in everything and the stuff in the cooler gets soggy – enter, the cool containers. No utensils needed, no plates needed and when they were done eating – you just put the top on the containers and stick it back in the cooler. No hassle. Totally awesome. I love compartments.

Another hit? Izze canned drinks from Costco. I feel good about them because they have half the sugar in them than regular sodas and no artificial stuff in them. The boys love them because they’re tasty … homerun.

Almost all of the Ordaz family: Arturo (the daddy), Antonio, Alejandro and Alonzo.

Happy faced Liam.

Just gorgeous. I was sitting next to him when I took this. Can you see the tiny reflection of me in his sunglasses? Good. That’s the only shot of me there is form this trip. Wonna know why? I was behind the camera and Daniel never picked it up to take any shots of me. It’s just as well though, I look like I’m about 6 months pregnant still, but without a cute little round tummy – imagine a flabby, weird tire around my middle like a floaty … not really picture worthy.

That mound under the sand is Liam. And then he immerged:

This is what Noah spent most of the 4 hours at the beach doing – digging a hole to China … or making a natural bathtub … not sure.

This cracks me up. Daniel and Liam found a little sandbar about 10 feet out and just sat there, letting the waves crash around them, just enjoying and relaxing. These two are Olympians at relaxing. If they could, both of these guys would sleep like Baby Ray – about 16 out of every 24 hours. They are in their element when they are unconcious.

And then the sun started going down and low and behold ….

Liam and Daniel were still relaxing. I told you.

Now for my other favorite part: Noah action shots. It was so nice to let Noah be Noah all day long and not have to tell him to calm down, or stop running or stop jumping. He got to just be himself – free as a bird all day long. And he reveled in it.

Daniel and I are die hard Calvin and Hobbes fans. We read it every night. We now think and speak in terms of Calvin and Hobbes … sometimes. So, when I saw this next picture of Noah, I had to put it side by side with the comic I was thinking of:

Awesome, right?

I’ll let Noah take us out with this last picture … it was a good beach day:

baby look alikes

Posted on July 25, 2012 by francescaforsyth

That’s me on the left, Ray in the middle and Daniel on the right. I don’t know how old Daniel is in this picture, but I was 6 weeks and so is Ray in his picture. Soooo, who does he look more like? I think he’s a pretty good mash-up of both of us, but he continues to morph everyday. We’ll see I guess.

I definitely think his lips are Daniel’s, and the cleft in his chin is not mine, but it doesn’t look like Daniel’s either … maybe my mom’s?? The eyes are mine, the shape face is Daniel’s and the nose could be either one.

Why does it look like half of my baby eyebrows are brown and the other half are non-existent?? weird.

big brother love

Posted on July 17, 2012 by francescaforsyth

Liam is very attentive to Baby Ray. He asks me all day long”Can I wash my hands and touch the Baby?” He wants to hold Ray and kiss him on the face and can’t walk by his bouncer without saying something to Ray or touching him. It’s cute. Sometimes scary. But mostly cute. On Sunday, Liam asked if he could hold the baby. So we let him and then snapped a few shots of them. Liam kept leaning down and kissing Ray too, but everytime we tried to catch a picture of the kiss, it turned out looking like Liam was about to bite Ray, or Liam’s head would be in the way … the pictures didn’t capture the sweetness of the kisses. But they captured the rapture in Liam’s face, don’t you think? Liam is happy to be a big brother to Baby Ray.

Let’s not pretend. You and I both know that I put this picture in for no other reason than to show off the crocheted loafers. And they’re awesome.