Mason's baptism

This photo in the hall was rushed, considering baptism to follow and Mason's dip in the font

After waiting nearly a month so that the grandparents could be here, we held Mason's baptism. We scheduled the church several weeks earlier and then made sure to spread the word to friends and family. We held the baptism after church, and since we were waiting for the bishop and some other friends while they were in a meeting, we decided to have a little lunch so that people wouldn't have to go home and then come back. While we were having lunch, the first councilor in the bishopric approached me and said, "Did you hear that the missionaries are at 5 o'clock?" My response: "No they're not. We have the building scheduled until 6."

OK, so I'm not really that difficult to deal with. We ended up moving Mason's confirmation to the chapel while the missionaries moved their meeting over to use the font right after we were done. Things ended up working out all right for everyone.

So, back to the photo caption. After Mason put on his white jumpsuit, I told him to go back into the other room, meaning the room where we were holding the opening part of the meeting, while I got dressed. A few minutes later Teressa pokes her head into the bathroom and tells me that I need to get Mason out of the font, now. It seems that Mason had misunderstood my directive to go back to the other room. He thought I wanted him to go to the font. By the time I went to go get him, he was doing the dog paddle. Teressa had been alerted to his hijinks by the sounds of his splashing. I fished him out of the font and had him put on a dry jumpsuit right before we took our photo in the hallway.

Happy belated birthday, Sam

The wait for his birthday cake seemed worthwhile for Sam

Samuel had been waiting for his birthday party for a while. Even though his birthday was on Oct. 23, we decided to wait to celebrate until his grandparents were in town for Mason's baptism. The best part is that Sam didn't even care. He was perfectly contented to wait until the cows came home to have his little party. He didn't even realize that we were holding out on gifts for him. And nothing could have lessened the pure, unadulterated joy he felt as he was mowing down that very first birthday cake. (OK, so it was mostly the icing.) At least by waiting, though, Sam's grandparents were able to participate in that first birthday ritual. Of course, the rest of us knew there was going to be cake the next day at Mason's baptism, so Sam was the only one to really pig out.

All for one

Sam certainly seemed to be enjoying himself, too, even though it was well past his bedtime.


Mason and Spencer enjoyed going trick-or-treating with the Schneider boys.

Ever since Mason was small, his Grandma Scott has been making his Halloween costume as a birthday present. When the other kids came along, we begged Grandma to make their costumes, too. We're lucky that Grandma is a softee. Of course that now means that Grandma is making three costumes instead of one, so she has to start preparing earlier. We had the costume idea and the pattern picked out over the summer this year.

This year the boys went out as the three musketeers (if you couldn't guess by looking at the photos above). They went to the ward trunk-or-treat and then I caught up with them after work, and we all went trick-or-treating with the Schneiders. And yes, those are mustaches that are painted on their faces.