porter's baby blessing

last weekend we had family in town for porter's baby blessing. landon was extremely excited all week for 'baby brother's blessing party'- partly for the party [he has come to believe party is codename for cupcakes] but mostly for his cousins. his cousin nick in particular. well, his aunts too- they seem to spoil him rotten when they see him [but nobody spoils the older cousins- maybe it's when you turn 4 and can start being bratty, you are no longer spoiled, which is what turned you bratty in the first place].

how beautiful is my mother? here she is enjoying her ice cream pedicure- in which i ate all her ice cream

friday shannon & charley came into town and we had a great afternoon hanging out with them. it had been one of the few days of the year that vegas gets rain so that was loads of fun. i had been scurrying around trying to clean the house in preparation for this weekend. landon had been up since 5:30am [like normal] and had been bugging me so i let him watch some tv mid-day [which never happens]. 5 minutes later when i looked in on him, he had fallen asleep straight up. wearing underwear. on our precious couch. thankfully he didn't have an accident. unfortunately, since it was about 4 hours before his normal nap, he only slept an hour and that's the only nap he had all day. shannon & i got cane's for lunch, went on a trip to walmart & bought more puzzles, and even got slurpees! [warning: do not buy the new diet cherry coke slurpee- not good at all] that night we had a large family dinner at my mom's house. landon was in heaven, running around with the boys & wrestling. poor peanut is the oldest of the bunch [peanut is 10, noah is 7, nick is 4 and landon is 2] but he plays so well with them all. it was non-stop motion and chaos!

sunday morning was a LONG morning- porter ate at 4am and once i got him back to sleep, landon was up at 5am. it took an hour to get him back to sleep and by then, porter was up for the day. all of my brothers & sisters were able to come except devin bc her baby girl has serious health issues that doesn't allow her to leave the SL valley. the blessing justin gave was so beautiful and the spirit was so strong. in my family, only my brother has the priesthood & justin is a convert so we only had 2 people for our prayer circle, so the bishop & counselors stepped in to help us. because of this, i have such a strong testimony & respect for the priesthood. my brother drove down late saturday night then left two hours after the blessing, so that meant so much to me. after the blessing & pictures we had a nice brunch with my family at my house where lots of cackling & inappropriate talk occurred. such a fun time! i feel so blessed to have such a great family & i'm so thankful for the gospel.