It's a........

BOY!!!!!!

Logan and the Priesthood :)

So Bryce has had this annoying cold since we got back from Oregon in August. It just won't go away. At dinner the other night, I suggested that maybe he should get a priesthood blessing. He said he's thought the same thing, and maybe he should call our home teachers soon. Logan said "well I'll just give you a priesthood blessing dad." Bryce said, "you can't honey, you don't have the priesthood." Logan said "well, just tell me where it is and I'll go get it." After talking for a few minutes we figured out that he thought the consecrated oil is "the" priesthood. :) I guess we haven't been very clear about what the priesthood is. :) It totally cracked us up.

Tagged

Tagged
I got tagged by Brooke Colvin. How to play this game. Post these rules on your blog; List 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 random surprising facts about yourself. Tag 5-6 people at the end of your post by leaving their names.

Joys
1. My hubby and kids
2. Icecream anything
3. All my girlfriends

Fears
1. Hubby and kids dying
2. Currently....having something go wrong with this pregnancy
3. Logan as a teenager!

Goals
1. To be better able to hear promptings of the spirit.
2. Not to get too fat with this pregnancy.
3. To get to the wire brush first every morning (said in my best Irish accent.....you'd have to hear the joke to understand......).

Current Obsessions
1. My pregnancy....can ya tell??
2. Fretting over that darn Legacy school getting here in time for next year.
3. Olive Garden.....mmmmm....Olive Garden.

Random Surprising Facts about Myself
1. I LOVE the 1800's era...although I'm glad I didn't have to live back then without modern conveniences.
2. When I was like 5 or 6 years old, I used to say really bad swear words. I learned them from the neighbor across the street. Don't worry, I grew out of it. :)
3. I hardly ever make my bed. I know, sinful.

Ok, I tag anyone who reads this and wants to play.

Landon's birthday

So Landon turned 4 on August 14th. He tells everyone everywhere we go "I'm four now and I can whistle, see?" He'd been telling me for months that he wanted an Indiana Jones birthday, so that's what we shot for. He got an Indiana Jones hat, whip, and figurine. He seemed happy. We love our Lanny SO much, he's such a wonderful little boy. So thoughtful and so full of love and cuddles. I can't get enough of that, and his cute chubby cheeks that I don't think will ever go away. :)

We of course did our traditional "eat at McDonalds, play at Peter Piper Pizza." McDonalds is WAY cheaper, plus we know they'll eat the food. We wasted a ton of $$ trying to get them to eat PP Pizza once and vowed we'd never do that again. We never have. They had a blast at PPP.
Thank goodness this is the last cake of the year that I have to make. This is LEGO Indiana Jones if you can't tell. :) I had to use the x-box cover to try to make the image right. It doesn't look perfect, but it turned out pretty good. Logan and Landon both loved it, so I guess that's all the matters. :)
Now our birthdays are done, for another 6 months anyway. All of our birthdays are in the summertime, so this next baby will be the oddball of the family....with a February birthday. It'll be nice to not be big and pregnant in the summertime though. :)

Silly Landon

This morning Landon said "Mom, I like elevators better than medicine. Why? Because they go up and down." I didn't even ask him "why?"....he just said that on his own. I had to laugh. :)

The Bates Reunion

So I guess I've fallen off the face of the blogging world for a few weeks. That's mostly because we went to Utah, Oregon, and Idaho and got back this week. It was a really fun vacation and we got to see most of the Bates and all of the McBride family members. Thanks to Steph M. and Mom Bates for letting us stay with you! We had a great time!

This is our little family at a lake near McCall, ID where we camped at a church camp for our family reunion. It was a nice little camp with bathrooms and showers, and a big kitchen to prepare everyone's food. The kids actually got brave enough to get in the freezing water. Unfortunately, we all came home with coughs and colds.....those cold temp changes get us every time! Arg. Oh well, it was worth the fun I guess.

So we had a little talent show the night before we left camp. It was fun. I had to do a polynesian dance of course, and my sister Shari did one of her Mexican dances. I love her dress, it's so pretty. She did a really good job.

I think this picture captures most of the family that attended. I think there were about 75 people in attendance for the reunion, and that just covers my mom, siblings, and nieces and nephews. Some were not able to come, and we missed them. It was fun though.

Mom Bates and Lanny.
Marlee and Bryce taking a walk down to the lake.
Logan said his favorite part about camping was helping in the kitchen. Groups of siblings were assigned to cook 1 meal for each day we were there. I think Logan helped with every meal. Thanks to everyone who cheerfully let him stay in the kitchen with you!

Some pics of us waking up in the tent. The nights were FREEZING!! We're use to sleeping in temps of 83 degrees at night. At this campground, it got down to 45 degrees at night. It felt Arctic to us!

Our kids really enjoyed camping, and Bryce and I had a good time too. We all got filthy dirty, but I guess that means we had a good time right? :) We had so much fun, it wore us all out. Logan rarely falls asleep in the car, but on our way back to Grandma Bates' house, the kids slept like this for almost 2 hrs. It was heaven!

So that was our trip! It was a LOT of time in the car, and we're always glad to get back home to our beds, but it was worth all the effort and $$ it took to go. We look forward to the next Bates reunion in two years! Oh, by the way, I'm pregnant. :)

Logan turned 6!!

Ok, so it's been a couple weeks, but Logan turned six years old on June 27th. I can't believe he's going into first grade this year. Seems like just yesterday we were crammed into our small Aggie Village apartment (about 500 sq ft) in Logan, UT, bringing home our first born child. Time has flown! Logan is a sharp boy with LOTS of character and has a very strong personality. We sure love him!

So, Yoda didn't turn out as good as Elmo did, but at least I tried. Logan liked it, and that's the important thing I guess. :)

Logan and Jake couldn't wait to try out the new Lego Indiana Jones X-box game that Logan got for his b-day. Silly boys.

Needless to say, we've had lots of Indiana Jones theme music being hummed around the house, and lots of belts being turned into whips. Whenever I tell Landon to do something, he says "do you mean Indiana Jones do your chore?" Kids are funny.