Partridge-style Home Evening

Grandma and Grandpa Partridge prepared a very special Family Home Evening for all of the family this week. They both took a few minutes to share their testimonies with us. Since we don't get to live close and don't see them often in formal church situations, we don't get the opportunity to hear them vocalize their testimonies much. So it was very powerful for me and I'm sure also for our boys to hear how much their grandparents love the Lord!

For the activity, we each got to open one more present. What did we find? Rockband t-shirts! Even Elizabeth got a cute girly one!
So everyone put their shirt on and we played Lego Rockband in rounds. First the kids were divided into 2 "bands". Once they all had a turn, the adults also got to play -- 4 in one band, then 4 in the other. Then we mixed it up and put kids and adults together.
This is Aunt Kaley, cousin Blake, Uncle Scott, and Nathan.
What a fun game! And I love that the Lego version has a Super Easy mode. The little kids like Joshua could play and not fail out, even when they're not even looking at the screen :)

I was lucky to get this shot of Nathan. Every time he saw the camera, he would stick his hand out in front of his face and scowl! Here he is singing "Ghostbusters" -- one of his favorite!
Kaley helping Benjamin rock the drums!
A great time was had by all! Nothing like a little music to bring the Partridge family together :)

Christmas with the Anders

We are so blessed that whenever we travel to Arizona we get to see both Ryan's family and mine too! Even though I grew up in Florida, my parents now live in Scottsdale, about 25 minutes from the Partridges.
We had fun over the week hanging out with the Anders. My brother Brantly was able to come over most of the time that we were there, which the 3 boys loved! Brantly is so good with kids and was so nice to play with them and be wild! Brantly shared some of his Twizzlers from his stocking with the kids, and then Nathan proceeded to help himself to almost all the rest of them! Here is Joshua having fun with them:
We went with Grandpa Anders to see "The Princess and the Frog" while Grandma babysat Elizabeth. I don't know which the boys enjoyed more: the cute movie, or the popcorn and soda that grandpa got for each of them :)
Nathan enjoyed playing "Life" with Grandma. He won fair and square each time he played!
He also learned some great new magic tricks from Grandpa.
Here is Benjamin chillin' on the couch playing a video game:
Joshua loved the Santa nesting dolls:
And Elizabeth was an angel as always. She is enjoying being on her tummy and playing with toys:
One of the great things about being in Arizona in December: Grandpa took the boys to the park to play!
My dad's birthday is about a week before Christmas, so my present to him this year was to take him out to dinner while I was in town. So one night Ryan stayed with the boys at his parents' house, and Elizabeth and I went to dinner with my parents. It was so enjoyable to get to visit with them one-on-one, without having to run kid interference! I have such wonderful parents, and it's so good to spend time with them!

A Christmas Surprise

We love having Christmas at home, yet we also love spending it with family. This year we got the best of both worlds! Our original plan was to spend Christmas at home, then drive down to Arizona on December 26 and spend the week there. Soon after Thanksgiving, Ryan got the idea to surprise his family by driving down early to be there sometime on Christmas day. We shared the idea with his brother, Brett, who lives here in UT, and they were excited to join in on the surprise. After a long sequence of events and a few stressful moments, the plans were arranged and we decided to drive halfway on Christmas Eve and the rest the next morning so we could arrive at Grandma-ma's (Ryan's grandma) house for the big Christmas Day lunch and festivities.

The boys were SO excited when we told them with about a week's notice that Santa would be coming early. They got even more excited as we were loading up the car when they learned that Dad could hook the Wii up in the van -- they got to play it on the drive! We left our house about 1:30 and so we were able to make it all the way to Flagstaff for the night. It was nice to only have a little more than a 2-hour drive on Christmas morning.

We made it to Grandma-ma's and Grandpa-pa's about 30 minutes before all the family was to show up. They knew we were coming early, as did Ryan's mom, but his 3 siblings who live in AZ and their families and Ryan's dad had no idea. Everyone showed up in stages, so we had fun standing at the door and yelling surprise each time one of the families came in.

The surprise was mostly for Ryan's dad. It was fun to see his reaction. We stood in the entryway and yelled surprise, joined by some of Chris' family who lives there in Mesa. So his face at first looked at us as if "Surprise" was a funny thing to say . . . no big deal that the family was there. Then after a few seconds you could tell that he had registered that all the Utah family was there a day and a half early and his face turned to happy surprise :)
Between Grandma-ma's house and then later that day at Ryan's parents' house, we had a great Christmas Day! The best present was being together as a family, and Santa was also very good to us!

The whole group together

Mrs. Claus, a.k.a. Grandma

Mr. Claus, a.k.a Grandpa
Getting ready to open presents

"1, 2, 3 . . . open!"
Night at the Museum shirts Grandpa got at the Smithsonian. Notice the cute 2 girl cousins -- with Elizabeth, there are only 3 girls and 10 boys in this group!

Adam and Noah enjoying their presents. They are about 2.5 weeks apart from each other and 5 months older than Elizabeth.
waiting patiently
Brett and Hyrum

Enjoying the presents from the cousins Joshua loved his new Cars hat and mittens so much that he wore the hat around before we cut the mittens off! Benjamin got a great drawing pad and markers, and Nathan was SO excited about his Bakugan display case. Notice that they are wearing the new slippers they insisted bringing from UT!

What a wonderful Christmas Day! As we celebrate the birth of our Savior, who has made eternal families possible, there is no greater gift than spending time with our family!

Christmas at home

We had a great Christmas this year! It started with a nice Christmas Eve dinner (a day early -- more on that later) with some friends from church. They came over with their 3 boys and we had a yummy night -- roast, twice-baked potatoes, green beans, rolls, cherry coke salad, and cherry chocolate kiss cookies.
Here are the kids posed around the tree later that night, right before they opened their 1 gift from the siblings.The next morning was December 24, and the boys were so excited that Santa had agreed to come a day early! Luckily they still slept until about 7:30. Here they are waiting at the top of the stairs until Dad gets the video camera all ready to go. Elizabeth was still asleep at this point.
Can we open anything yet?!
They were excited to find a Wii and some games. Surprisingly, one of the favorite gifts was the slippers that each boy got from Mom and Dad!
Have you ever seen such an adorable candy cane?!
We finished off the morning with bacon and omelets and playing Wii sports.

Happy Anniversary

10 Years ago today . . .

Ryan and I were married in the Orlando temple on a dreary, rainy day. Today on our 10th anniversary, it is overcast and dreary in Provo. In contrast, the last 10 years have been absolutely wonderful! I love that we both got each other sentimental gifts. Ryan got our wedding video re-done (with help from his brother -- thanks, Brett!) into DVD format. Not only was the original VHS out-of-date, but the quality was poor. I made a semi-scrapbook album of our 10th Anniversary Top 10 . . . basically things I love about the last 10 years together.

Ryan was able to take the day off of work -- yippee! We went out to lunch at Magleby's. Gotta love their cheesy bread and monster chocolate cake! Then Ryan dropped me off at a Day Spa and I spent the next 3 hours being pampered with a body salt scrub, seaweed wrap, and massage. What a great gift! We went to Ryan's work Christmas party at his boss' house for dinner and then saw "Blindside" at the movie theater. We originally had wanted to go out of town to celebrate, but realized that Elizabeth was too young to leave at this point. At first I was a little disappointed, but really the day couldn't have turned out any better!

The Best Part of My Day

Joshua: "My name is Joshua Spirit Paul Partridge."

Me: "Really?! And why is it also Spirit?"

Joshua: "Because I have a spirit inside me and he is Joshua, too!"

A Christmas Miracle

Christmas time is filled with miracles, but this one was still a pretty tall order. Jennifer and I will be celebrating our 10 year anniversary next week, and as yet I have never hung Christmas lights on our house. Ever. The closest we have come is draping two light-nets over the bushes outside our front door several years ago at our last house. It's not that I don't like Christmas lights -- in fact I really enjoy them. Many years, especially when we were first married, we went out of town as soon as school and work would allow. So I didn't really see the point in putting them up. On top of that, the roof line of our last house made it extremely difficult (and pretty dangerous) to hang lights.

That isn't to say, of course, that I haven't looked for excuses over the years as well. I've gotten pretty good at simply putting it off until it's too late. Last year Jennifer even bought a couple of sets of outdoor lights and clips. I merely tucked them into a drawer in the garage and ignored them. This year, however, Jennifer was determined that I would get them up.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving the weather was clear, and several neighbors had already gotten their lights up, so Jennifer said that it was time for me to get a move on. Being a software engineer (aka big geek), I couldn't just go buy a bunch of lights and start stringing them up. I needed a diagram. And measurements. And it had to involve my computer. :) So I took my 10 foot ladder out into the middle of the street, climbed up (to get the right angle), and took a picture of the house and roof line. Then I used a graphics program to extrapolate a diagram of just the outline of the house. Finally, I climbed out of the upstairs window with tape measure, pencil, and clipboard. The result: a simple yet complete diagram of all the measurements of the 2nd story walls and roof lines. Naturally, by the time I was done, it was too dark and cold to actually hang any lights, which we still needed to buy. I was starting to think I may actually dodge it another year.

Yesterday was my day of reckoning. Mid afternoon, when the slush finally stopped coming down from the sky (not snow, not rain -- slush). I bundled up, grabbed my ladder and five boxes of brand new LED lights and headed outside. Hanging the lights turned out to be easier than I thought, except on the west side of the house. The slope of the yard is not conducive to ladders, so I kept it folded up and just leaned it (somewhat precariously) wherever I could against the house. Oh yeah, and the rain/slush was back.

There is a scene in the end of "Back to the Future" where Marty and the DeLorian are accelerating to 88 MPH while Doc Brown is leaning out of the clock tower trying to connect the ends of the cable back together. At one point he's got one arm fully extended, dangerously reaching for the socket. That was me this weekend, perched up at the top of a crooked ladder, reaching for the end of the string of lights to plug them into the extension cord. Fortunately for me, there was no long ride down to the bottom of the clock tower followed by near-fatal electrocution. :)

And yet, the story doesn't end there. After all that effort, a section of one strand of lights right in the middle wouldn't light up. Not the whole strand, just one section of it. As anyone would, I had plugged the lights in before I hung them, and they were fine. I checked bulbs, replaced fuses, etc., but the one section still wouldn't light up. Even though it was dark and I couldn't feel my fingers anymore, with Nathan as my helper I took down the defective strand and replaced it with one of the extras. Just for fun, as I got stuff cleaned up and headed inside, I plugged in the bad strand again. It lit up. All of it. Go figure.

So what do I have to show for my efforts? A very modest string of lights across the first floor roof line, and a fuzzy picture to prove it. (It's hard to hold the camera still when your fingers are frozen. :) )

Why such a simple display? If I set the bar too high this year, what kind of effort is going to be expected next year? :)

Rolie Polie Ellie

(We NEVER call her Ellie -- I was just trying something catchy, and paying tribute to "Rolie Polie Olie" that used to be on Disney Channel.)

This weekend we noticed that Elizabeth was starting to roll onto her right side a lot. She would try and try to get all the way over, but that silly arm kept getting in her way. I tried to encourage her and yet at the same time I tried to ignore that she was trying to roll. It is so fun whenever babies hit big milestones, and yet it is sad to see them grow up. (It's hard to even imagine her as her newborn self, even though it was only 4 months ago.)

Before

On Tuesday we were at a neighbor's house. She tried for about 5 minutes and then she got it!! (Of course, this is just hours after Grandma Anders left town, and just 48 hours after her Partridge grandparents were here.) I took her home soon after, and she rolled over again while I was out of the room for all of about 2 minutes. She proceeded to roll over about 5 more times within the next 2 hours or so. I guess once she learned to roll, she had it down!

After

Tuesday night and Wednesday became hard because she rolls almost immediately now. But after about 5-10 minutes of being on her tummy, she wants to be done in that position. But she doesn't know how to roll from her belly to her back yet. So I have been picking her up a lot lately. I put her in the swing yesterday (not a common place, although she doesn't mind being in it) and she was trying to roll to the side in the swing!
She is almost 4 and a half months old now. Besides rolling, she loves to smile, laugh, "sing", and look around at EVERYTHING!

I Can't Wait Until I'm Eight

This past Saturday, December 5, Nathan was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In the months leading up to this special day, we had our share of rough moments and even days with him. As most of you already know, Nathan is very strong-willed. Often he and I had our power struggles, and a lot of times those happened at church. I also think he shows his nerves about something new by acting up sometimes. So I was worried that he wouldn't cooperate for his big day.

But the whole day and even the whole weekend went amazingly well! Grandma Anders drove up from Arizona on Thursday and spent the weekend with us. Grandpa Anders was supposed to fly in from work in Houston -- long story short, he got snowed in and we didn't get to see him (but he sure tried and tried to get here). Grandma and Grandpa Partridge flew in from Arizona on Friday.

Nathan & Grandma Anders

On Saturday morning, Nathan got to go around the neighborhood with the scouts and pick up food for a food drive. He LOVES cub scouts and didn't even want to wear a coat (it was about 30 degrees) because he didn't want to cover up his scout shirt.

The baptism was at noon. Besides our family and the grandparents, we had quite a few others come to support Nathan: Uncle Brett and Aunt Stephanie and their 2 boys, our friend Natalie, the Jackson family, the Fitch family, Brother Lepak (our home teacher), and even a boy from Nathan's school class that had been at the church for his ward party and decided he wanted to stay!

The baptismal program was all taken care of by another ward, so we got to just enjoy everything. After the confirmation, Nathan shook the hand of everyone in the circle and then came up and gave me a big hug, which was a very tender moment for me. I was then given the privilege of sharing my testimony with Nathan and everyone in the room. I've had a lot of tender and real experiences with the Holy Ghost lately, and so it was great to be able to share that with him just after he was given the special gift of the Holy Ghost!

Then we headed back home and had a nice deli-tray luncheon. Simple yet delicious! Grandma Anders had given him a book the day before that is a journal about his baptism. Natalie gave him a similar book at the luncheon. When he opened the first one, I was worried he would think it was a lame gift and get mad, but he got really excited about the book. When he got the second book, we told him he could take it to the store and exchange it for something else, but he decided to keep it. So now he has 2 books to remember this weekend! And he has spent all weekend taking the time to fill them both out -- it is so fun for me to see him so excited about it! Grandma and Grandpa Partridge gave him a chapter book about baptism & a tie tack (which he miraculously wore on Sunday -- he usually refuses to wear ties!), and he got a mini-size Children's Song Book from Grandma-ma. (Our sweet neighbors, the Denneys, couldn't make the baptism -- but they were so thoughtful to bring over a game and a card for him!) It was like another birthday around here! (Benjamin was having a hard time seeing Nathan get all the presents. Telling him "you'll get this when you turn 8 and get baptized" really didn't help!)

And then Ryan and I gave him his first set of scriptures and a case. He was SO excited for these that within a few hours we braved the cold and the holiday shoppers to go get his name embossed on them. We ended up exchanging the basic scripture case I had picked out for a fancier one that Nathan found. It has an extra pocket for his song book, and it buckles instead of zips. It also has a shoulder strap so he can wear it -- and wear it he did! When the bishop called him up to the stand to recognize him on Sunday, he started to pick up his scriptures. Since he wasn't going to be up there more than about 30 seconds, I whispered to him that he could leave them on the bench by me, but he would have none of that! He wore them on the opposite shoulder, and I had several people tell me throughout the day that he looked like a little missionary. So I made sure to take a picture of the look when we got home:
Every night when we put the 3 boys to bed, we read a "scripture" together out of one of the children's board books. Well on Sunday night, Nathan had his scriptures in the room with him (we do it in Benjamin and Joshua's room). I asked him if he wanted to read the scripture tonight and he did. I don't know if he picked it on purpose, or if he randomly opened them up, but he read us about 5 verses out of Obidiah! When I tucked him into bed a few minutes later, he shared that he now has a goal to read the entire Pearl of Great Price in the next month.

You do your best to teach your children. After about the tenth time of re-teaching, you wonder if they are getting it, and if so why they aren't applying it. But just like Elder Bednar said in last Conference, you keep consistently doing what you know will help their testimonies grow. It was so rewarding for Ryan and I this weekend to see that Nathan does have a testimony of Christ, that he loves scriptures, and that he can be good and choose the right. We hope that he will continue to make good choices and follow the Spirit.