Karl and Angela Rees

Jonah's  blessing went well.  

We had a BBQ and cake with everyone before Angela's grandparents left.  The rest of Angela's family stayed the night.  Before they left the next morning, they were kind enough to pull our weeds and paint our trim.  They spent the week at Yosemite. 

Tuesday we went to a baseball game with Karl's coworkers.  Thomas loved it.  Afterwards he would ask "Baseball game?" wondering if we were going again.  Or saying "Baseball game fun."

Friday, after a longer than expected drive (partly due to nursing, partly due to traffic), we arrived in Tahoe for the Duncan family reunion.  30 people under one roof is tons of fun.  We had a yummy tri-tip dinner with the Duncan Clan.  Tristan, even though he is eight, enjoyed playing with our Thomas.  This was fantastic because Thomas enjoyed playing with him and Tristan would watch out for Thomas.  Ciera and Gavin also enjoyed playing with Thomas, and in fact fought over who was Thomas' best friend before we left.

Thomas unfortunately didn't sleep much of the 2 hour car ride.  We think he was excited about the plane ride.  He did sleep on Karl's lap for the shortest of the 2 flights, though.  That was

 practically all the sleep he would get for the day.  Surprisingly Thomas did very well that day.  He took 2 short car ride naps, and crashed that night after a big meltdown getting him to bed.  Jonah, meanwhile, did get some good sleep on the first two flights of his life.  He had an even better day than Thomas.  

So the reason we were headed to Austin was that Karl's grandfather decided to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints at the age of 80.  He had been baptized a Lutheran when younger, but after years of going to church with our family, he decided the time was right to be baptized a member of the LDS church.  So we caught a last minute flight that got us into town about 2 hours before the baptism.  In fact, our second flight was delayed and we were worried we would not make it.  

 

The spirit at the baptism was amazing.  We were pleased to be a part of it.  Almost all of his grandfather's descendants were there (minus Karl's brother Bryan, who in spite of being on a mission in Poland right now, we're sure was there in spirit).  Karl's dad said the opening prayer.  Karl's uncle Ronnie gave a great talk.  Karl's brother Chris did the baptism.  Wayne gave another great talk.  Becky and Katie did the music.  Karl's mom said the closing prayer.  Karl's sister Amy and Susie and Karl's Aunt Linda helped watch the kids.  It was quite the family affair.  We're so grateful to the example Karl's grandfather has set for us, that it's never too late to commit / re-commit ourselves the teachings of Jesus into our lives.  Karl was able to confirm his grandfather.  What a special honor for Karl.  

Monday we headed to Amy's for a pool pizza party with Thomas' birthday in mind.  Too bad we forgot our swimsuits, but Thomas had a blast without us.   Thomas and Paela hit it off like they never had parted, splashing water at each other, running around everywhere in grandma's house, scheming to get in the fridge (ordered Paela--"Thomas, milk, climb"--the trouble-maker!).  We wish Thomas had had more time to get to know Rowan and Davin, but he followed Davin around some and played a little with Rowan too.  Thomas had a blast in the pool with Amy and Suzie.  After cake (he blew out his candles on the first try) and presents we made our way back to the airport to return home (we had to return so quickly partly because Karl is still trying to catch up at work, and partly because we would have had to pay for Thomas' ticket if we had waited another day).   

We celebrated Thomas' birthday on Thursday.  We had a playdate at the park.  Thomas picked an Elmo cake for his birthday, so Angela spent alot of the previous day making it.  It turned out pretty good.  Too bad not everyone showed up who said they were going to (only about half came), but we still had fun.  Karl even went into work late to join in the fun.  Thomas is enjoying all of his new toys--wood train set, tricycle (can't figure out how to pedal yet though), tool set (it's so nice to be able to tell Thomas to go get his tools and help us out, instead of having him grab a real hammer and start banging the wall--amazingly enough, he likes his tools better than ours), new shoes, etc.  We decided to buy some containers to store all his toys in on Saturday, as keeping up with his toys has become quite difficult.  We took him to the store to spend his $5 he got from his great grandparents.   He understands the need to buy things at the store instead of just take them, but he had a harder time understanding that there was a limit to what he could buy.  In the end we gave him a few options and he picked a white car over a baseball bat, which was a close second (he loves white and yellow by the way).  

Jonah is growing well.  We noticed that he is noticeably bigger than 2 babies in our ward that are a month older.  Jonah belly laughed this week.  Angela gave both boys a bath, putting Jonah's tub in the bathtub with Thomas.  Thomas was playing with his toys and while he was laughing, Jonah just thought it was funny and joined in  (we will post video someday).  Thomas was shocked and just stared.  We think the idea that Jonah could learn to do things besides cry caught Thomas offguard.