Kiddie candids

This untitled self-portrait was found when the camera was connected to the computer for the first time

Spencer's big gift for his birthday was a children's digital camera. He has spent hours taking pictures with Teressa's camera phone, so we figured it would be a gift that he could get great enjoyment from. Evidently he wasn't the only one. In the first few days, the camera ran out of batteries twice. We were even starting to wonder if maybe the camera wasn't broken, at least until I hooked it up to the computer for the first time. On the camera I found 233 images, mostly photos of individual Pokemon cards, but also including the great photo you see above. After consulting with Teressa, I realized that she had already deleted numerous Pokemon card photos. It seems we solved the mystery of why the batteries were drained.

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.

Overheard

On Saturday we went to see Mason's karate graduation where he received his purple belt. Graduation is a big event with hundreds of parents and family members there to watch these kids get new belts. The event includes videos and music playing while the classes demonstrate different techniques. As I was listening to this music play, I initially thought I was hearing well-known popular music. Then I started paying more attention and realized that the tunes were those I was familiar with, but the words had been changed. The words had been changed to something more in line with evangelical christian tastes.

My favorite example was the song where this band had taken the song "Pour some sugar on me" and turned it into "Learn some Deuteronomy." But since "Deuteronomy" has one more syllable than "sugar on me," it came out sounding like, "Learn some dude-er-om-ny." At first, I wasn't sure whether the song was some strange joke, or whether the song was supposed to be serious. I found the song on iTunes, and supposedly the song is meant to be a parody, though I suspect the song is not meant to be as big a joke as it comes out sounding like. It goes to show that sometimes you don't have to try to be funny to be funny.

In case you are thinking that I am being a little too harsh on the tune thieving evangelical christian crowd, feel free to check out this column printed in September 2000 where I pillory the Mormon crowd who brought us Book of Mormon action figures, among other things. Boy I sound like a hothead.

I've never quite been able to get into the christian rock thing. I think the mix of religion and heavy metal is just too much for me to wrap my mind around. And I will admit I feel the same way about Mormon attempts to mix religion and popular music. (See the paragraph on Afterglow in the above column.) This experience has done nothing to sway my opinion.

Mason's party

Mason broke this board with one swift kick

Mason turned eight years old this week. In celebration, we rented the tae kwon do facility Mason goes to and invited 37 kids to come to a birthday party. Luckily for us, only 21 showed up. I'm not sure how we would have dealt with 37 kids. We were happy, however, to not have to plan activities for that many kids or have them running wild through our home. The kids had a good time playing games and running through different tae kwon do drills. Mason enjoyed being the center of attention. He even got to break a board with his foot. I managed to catch the photo of him above but unfortunately missed the look of utter surprise on his face when the board actually broke.

Conference craziness

Before General Conference this year, we read a story from the Friend about a family that put up tents to watch conference, just like the people put up tents around the temple to listen to King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon. Of course the kids thought that was a great idea and wanted to do it, too. As you can see from the photos above, the tent may have been more of a distraction than a helpful conference tool. Even certain adults were getting in on the fun.