Kate's Blessing Day

Well it seems with the fourth child we had the perfect blessing day. I mean it. It was wonderful! All of Scott's family was here. A lot of my family was here (parents and six of the kids). And two very close friends and their families joined us (Greg Thornton and Rudy Schenk). It was General Conference Sunday, so there was no church, it was just our blessing day - April 1, 2012.

Scott and I sent our kids (and Laura and her kids) to Landon and Sarah's house for the day to watch conference with all the family. This made for a no stress, beautiful day. Scott and I worked together to pick up the house, put the food together (easy) and set up while we listened to some of conference. We also had a nice moment of sitting together, holding little Kate and talking about what we hope for her in her life and what we'd like included in her blessing. Priceless.

We had everyone meet at the church in the YW room for the blessing. It was overwhelming to see that whole room filled with the people that we love most in the world (some missing of course). It was just us. I was so grateful to have each person there. Scott gave Kate a really genuine, heart felt blessing. It was beautiful.
Kate Susan was given her name in the blessing. She was named after my mom, Susan. This day was made even more special because it was the 40th anniversary of my mom being baptized a member of the church. That decision led to a family being raised in the gospel and my forever family. I'll always be grateful she made that choice.

After the blessing we all went back to our house for dinner. It was a cold, snowy day so we had to contain the kids inside. Unfortunate. We had about 25 adults and 26 kids. It all worked out alright though. We served (four crock pots) teriyaki chicken, rice, fresh pineapple and green salad. Laura was nice enough to make little cupcakes for dessert.


The free for all in the basement.
The proud parents and our sleeping beauty.

Brian played the pipes for us to celebrate.One year ago this month my dad was in the hospital waiting for a new heart. It was something special to have him with us for Kate's blessing.

All the Buchanan cousins together.

What a wonderful day!

The Reason for the Madness

Guess what arrived in the mail!! I ordered our sixth year blog book last Thursday and by Tuesday it was here. I was so excited to see it. All of that time and work and picture taking and writing all into one book for us to have a family journal of our year.

The blog is sometimes hard to want to keep up. I like having it so that my family and friends who don't live close by can keep up with us if they want to. But really, the main reason I do it (and include so many pictures, I know) is this. The kids were on the floor looking at the pictures, remembering and laughing forever last night.

In the beginning of our blog I tried to think of all different ways to have it in a hard copy for us to look at for years to come. I figured out very quickly that I was not going to give the time or money necessary to scrapbooking it all. This was AFTER I paid to have a year's worth of pictures actually printed. I knew that I needed this blog in a book. It contained all the pictures and events of our family since the time Brielle was born. I finally came upon absolutely the easiest way to print it into a book and that is what I needed. Easy. And TA DA! I have been printing them each year (when the discount code arrives) and now we have every year of our blog - 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 in a hard bound color printed book.

I can not tell you how glad I am to have these. They are for sure what I would grab if the house was on fire and I had to run out and only grab one thing. I always say, "If I were to die, at least I have the blog books for the kids to remember me by and see all the fun we had together." They mean a heck of a lot to me and I hope they mean a lot to our kids as we are able to look back at these years and the memories in the future.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

We had a fun little St. Patrick's Day. We hung out at home, so the kids did a little craft in honor of the day - a rainbow with a pot of gold at the end. A lot of Fruit Loops were consumed in the making of these masterpieces.

As the kids crafted, I had a corned beef cooking away for hours in the oven. It smelled so good and "irishy" at our house. We took our corned beef and potatoes over to Fred and Rama's house where she had the cabbage cooking and had ourselves a delicious St. Patrick's Day meal together.

Four Week Photo Shoot

(My apologies to all those who have already seen these on Facebook. I have to include them here so that they go into my Blog Book for the year. And they aren't half bad to look at again, right?)

I wanted to do newborn pictures of baby Kate. We went when she was exactly four weeks old. A little too old. I told the photographer that I just needed one simple picture of all four kids together and then the others were free to go. He sat them down on a couch, put Kate in Brie's arms, clicked away and then said, "Ok, you guys can go get fruit snacks and go in the toy room now." Sweet!!! That was so easy. And I absolutely love how they turned out. My favorite picture ever right now is the one of all of them looking at her. I'm in love!

So, then it was Kate's turn and the girl did not cooperate. I had a set amount of time for them to photograph her and she fussed for the duration of it. I nursed her, soothed her, wrapped her, but she just didn't want to be the sweet and sleepy newborn that she usually is. They just wanted her asleep so they could do all that they had planned. She wouldn't have it. As soon as we called it quits she conked out for a good few hours straight in her car seat.

I was still very happy with the pictures they did get. This beautiful baby girl is honestly the sweetest thing ever!

Man Dates

Scott has a few good guy friends that he hangs out with. They go on "man dates". These dates are almost always with Matt to the gym after they both have helped put their kids to bed. Sometimes a man date will be to a movie that the wives wouldn't ever really want to see (action). The most recent "man date" was the best of all.

It was Saturday morning. We woke up to all four kids coming into our bed to pile on Daddy. It was a nice moment and then got better . . . . Scott said, "Matt says he is taking his kids on a hike. I think I'll take ours and go too." WAHOOO! I happily helped him get everyone dressed appropriately (you know Brie) and pack a backpack of snacks and diapers. Then I kissed them all and sent them on their way. Kate and I stayed home in our pajamas just snuggling on the couch and then napping. It was truly wonderful.

Everyone had a good time on the hike as well. Kind of. They hiked 3 1/2 miles round trip with the little boys in backpacks. Brie and Ava were troopers and proved again that they are really good hikers (something they are very proud of).

The dads and kids did well until a big rock was dropped on Ava's finger and she was hurt pretty badly. They didn't make it to the top, but turned around to head home. She finished the hike, but came home in tears. We had to clean it off - which meant wrestling her to where Scott pinned her down and I cleaned the dirt out and put the band aid on. Once that was all over she settled down, but was and still is quite traumatized. Hopefully she will hike again.

All in all a good date, I'd say.

Special Delivery

After baby Kate arrived a few more special deliveries arrived at our house as well. When Scott went back to work . . . he really went back to work. He was leaving at 6am and not getting home until 11pm. Then, as soon as his day off came, he boarded a plane to Oregon to drive home our new van!! Wahoo!! We bought a BYU blue Toyota Sienna from Glenn and Renee. He flew in one day and drove all 14 hours home the next (even picking up a couple hitch hikers along the way. Seriously.)

I must say, we are so appreciative of our old Dodge Caravan. We got it when Brie was a baby and it has been very good to us. Now it will go to a cute little Mexican family that is expecting their third child. We are SO SUPER excited about the new van . . . most especially the automatic door, the back door that doesn't have to be held up by my head and more musical options than a broken tape deck. We are high class now!

The same day Scott flew to Oregon, my mom flew here from California to meet Kate and help me. It was WONDERFUL to have her. She held the baby while I took care of house and kids or just took a shower. She spent a whole afternoon cooking with Ava in her Easy Bake Oven. She made us good meals and cleaned up the kitchen over and over. She read books with and played games with the kids. It was nice to have another hand around, someone to talk to, be with and help me figure out life with four kids. Thank you mom! With my mom came the delivery of the most beautiful new blanket for Kate. My sister Laura made this gorgeous blanket and sent it with her. I'm in love with it and so is baby. Laura and I went looking for fabrics when I was in CA, then she put it together and sewed it. It turned out great. I love the colors and how incredibly soft and warm the back side of minky is. This baby is living in the lap of luxury swaddled up in this blanket. I take it everywhere with me and everywhere I go all the women I pass ohh and ahh over how nice it is. So pleased. Thank you Laura! Laura even included hair clips and a headband made from the fabric of the blanket. So cute.
When Scott arrived back home he also had a BEAUTIFUL blanket for baby Kate. Isn't this a lucky baby? It was a surprise from her cousin Ariana. Ariana is only 14 years old and made this incredible blanket. The fabrics are just right together and the back stitching is an awesome swirly pattern. She even chose a fabric with cupcakes on it before she knew we called her "baby cake". Just perfect. I was excited to see this gift from Ariana and felt grateful that she would put so much time and effort into something so special for our baby. We love it. Thank you Ariana!!Scott even recieved a special delivery of his own. He came running into the house with the mail and then ran upstairs with a secret package tucked under his arm. He appeared again in a hiking kilt. He ordered this special little number for his 56 mile hike up Mt. Whitney with my family. Lookin' good! His skirt certainly shows off his hotty legs.

And today, Brie and Ava had a special delivery for all of our poor unsuspecting neighbors on their Sunday afternoon. They decided to put on a circus. That's right folks, a circus. They made flyers and were headed out the door at 3:30pm on a Sunday to knock on everyone's door and invite them to the circus. Luckily, my visiting teachers arrived and were nice enough to be the audience and save the neighbors naps. They put on quite a show of acrobatics. Really, it was so cute.
And I guess "The Amazing Zachary" was the mime of the show. Oh, and he went down the slide!
Yep, life has been pretty exciting around here - just take a look at this girl's face.