eagle court and thanksgiving

About a year ago I suggested to Burke that Thanksgiving might be a great time to have his Eagle Court of Honor, with the hopes that my family might be able to be here for both events. It was helpful for Burke to have a date to get everything finished up in time for, and we were grateful that we had family willing to make the trip south.

My brother Mark and his family ran into a problem on the drive from Colorado...specifically a deer that had just been hit by another car! It caused about $1000 in damage, but we were all really grateful that they made it safe and sound (even if it meant not being able to watch the BYU game live). There were running jokes all week long about the poor deer:

It makes my heart so happy to see cute cousins enjoying each other's company:

McKaylynn introduced my kids to dubsmash and the cousins had fun making videos together. This has been Tosh's favorite song for some time now. I love that I have this one saved:

McKaylynn turned 21 the first day everyone was here. Jake bought her a keg to celebrate the occasion:

Burke's Eagle Court of honor was on November 24th. My friend Keri asked if we could do a joint Eagle Court with her son and then we ended up inviting another family to join us as well. It turned out really nice and it was helpful to divide the work--ha!

Keri took the three boys to get their photos taken and created a nice invitation:

Burke was a really motivated and dedicated boy scout. I honestly only had to ask him to get the paperwork going for his project. He's had a great attitude and fantastic leaders. Nice work, Burke!

My brother, Todd, helped me put together a nice video presentation that showed photos of each boy from cub scouts to Eagle. It turned out really nice and ended with this cute photo:

Here are a bunch of photos from the court of honor:

The Program:

EAGLE SCOUT COURT OF HONOR

for

Zachary Clark Sterling
Jacob Asher Gardner
Burke Thomas Peterson

November 24, 2015

Welcome by Master of Ceremonies                                                                                         John Platt

Opening Prayer                                                                                                                       Clark Merkel

Color Guard                                                                                                        Gilbert American Legion 

                                                                                                                                      Post 39 Color Guard

Pledge of Allegiance                                                                                                           Jordan Sterling

                            

Formation of the Eagle’s Nest

Scoutmaster Remarks                                                                                                        Shaun Gardner

Video Presentation

Eagle Award Presentation and Eagle Challenge

Mormon Battalion Presentation                                                                                            Bob Church

Closing Prayer                                                                                                                       Todd Dunning

The mothers pinned on the Eagle pins and the fathers did the neckerchiefs:

Giving the Eagle Challenge:

Burke's remarks and presenting/thanking his mentors: Kent Warner and Shaun Gardner

Receiving the Mormon Battalion slide:

Brock and Tosh during the refreshments...battling with their S'mores pop sticks?

The big family group shot! Lots of scouters in this bunch:

The adults went the the Gilbert Temple together on Robbie P's birthday:

That afternoon, Rob and I went to see Hewitt at a parade at his school, and Truman went on a park swing for the first time. Love my cute boys:

While company was here Truman slept in a porta-crib in our closet. I found him napping like this one day--sitting up and folded over!

The doorbell rang while we were about to eat dinner on Rob's birthday and I thought it must be some friends bringing something to Rob. We were all surprised that it was my sister and brother-in-law at the door! We were really happy for them to join us for Thanksgiving--first time all of my siblings have been together on Thanksgiving since 1991!!! (We won't mention that David bought Mindy a ticket to fly her here for Burke's Eagle Court but got the day wrong...such a sweet thought/effort and very appreciated).

Lots of games were played:

After dinner on Thanksgiving we went around the big circle and shared things we are thankful for and shared memories of Grandma and Grandpa Dunning.

We hiked SanTan Mountain together the day after Thanksgiving... Do you have enough to carry there, Rob?

The whole gang at the very top:

More games before the sad goodbyes. It was a great week--sure love these people (and we missed all the Linton kids!)!

november 2015

November was an eventful month (I'm going to break it up into two different posts).

Truman is changing at rapid speed. He was able to stand and balance holding onto something really well at the very beginning of November:

I let Liv finish off this whipped topping and she said, "Mmmmm. It's almost like I'm going to marry this whip cream!"

Liv has a new favorite book! My thoughtful mom--thinking of her grandchildren before they were even born:

November 6th was my dad's 80th Birthday!
I sure love and miss you, Dad!!! You could always stand out in a crowd:

 Hewitt got to go on his first overnight 11-year-old campout and had a great time. Side note: He had made a list of everything to bring and was concerned that I couldn't find our whistle. I assured him that he would be OK without it...He laugh later that it was just at Skousen Park, right by one of the LDS buildings in Chandler. He thought they would be in the mountains :)

Hewitt and Rob just before leaving for the campout:

Cute little Tru started crawling everywhere and exploring the house like mad in November. Look out, World!

Liv had an assignment to 'disguise' a turkey so it wouldn't get eaten for Thanksgiving. She made a list of about 15 possibilities she was interested in and then decided on Wonder Woman. This one's for you, Merit!

  
We had our friends Sruthi and Sriram and their little daughter, Sia (one week younger than Truman), over for dinner one night. Sruthi and Rob used to work together on the same team and we had a dual baby shower together at Intel. 

Cuties:

Truman hasn't really spent a lot of time and around other babies and got pretty friendly...

...a little TOO friendly! 

Sorry, Sia! She didn't seem to mind and I grabbed him right away--ha!

A photo of Truman pulling himself up to stand:

We had the twins with us on Veteran's Day. The kids spent lots of time playing outside together. August loved taking Truman for a walk. Side note: I tried to take Truman inside to feed him lunch and he freaked out! I ended up bringing the baby food outside so he could eat and still watch his brothers play basketball.

Rob took the four older kids to the Stake Fair (at Skousen Park) and they had a fun time. There were all sorts of game booths, good food, a cool magic show, and face painting:

Rob and I were very amused that Truman would be sitting on the floor but scoot himself around in a circle. It was hard to get a good video of it, but this is a fairly good example:

Truman started eating some table foods this month (he really likes bread!). He loved the cantaloupe that I put in this little strainer/contraption:

He thinks it's so fun to drink water (I had a tiny bit in there) out of this 'big boy' cup:

He licks his lips so cute after getting some.

Tru has always been a 'cat napper' for the most part, but naps became especially challenging this month now that he's so mobile. He would constantly stand up in his crib!

Liv decided to help and created a "play pen" for her busy brother one afternoon--ha! She put him in the laundry basket and game him some things to play with:

Liv is so helpful:

Cute crawling boy at EIGHT MONTHS!!!

EIGHT for EIGHT months:
1. Shakes his head "no"
2. Gives "five"
3. Obsessed with finding door stops and electrical outlets
4. Thinks his sister is hilarious
5. Crawling everywhere
6. Pulls himself to standing
7. Thinks naps are overrated
8. Growing up TOO FAST!!!

We had family photos done by our friend, Mike Sherwood, about an hour before my family arrived in town for Thanksgiving (next blog post). It was a busy Saturday getting the house ready for company, shopping for food, getting the kids to four soccer games, taking Liv to a birthday party (at a 12,000+ square foot house on an 5-acre private island!!!), and trying to get everyone showered and ready for photos--whew!  Here's a selfie in the back seat with the younger kiddos. Can you spy Truman's feet?

Here are my favorite photos back from Mike. I'm really happy with how they turned out. Especially this fantastic one of our fabulous five!

  

 

I'm a very lucky girl, for sure!