Tanner's 8th birthday and baptism

 My baby is 8! I was so happy for him to join the rest of the family and be a baptized member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! 

Boy, it's a lot of work prepping for a baptism! I took his pictures at the Gilbert temple and made the invite a few weeks beforehand. The date got bumped up because we realized kind of late that Travis would be out of town on the priest camp out the day of stake baptisms. Not sad at all to skip stake baptisms though and have our own. Life is so busy, the first weekend of June was the the only available date we had all summer. Fun that it was the day after his birthday! Sad, that it meant Karen and Reddin's family couldn't make it. Our neighbors, the Conners said they would come and then bailed literally the moment it started. Tanner had also invited his school teacher, Mrs. Sandoval, and she said she would come but then had a family situation arise and didn't come after all. It was hard not to be bummed about all of that, but we were so grateful for all the family who DID come. 

Gah, I die over how handsome he is!!

Ok, backtrack to his actual birthday. Landon spent the night and normally we do donuts on birthdays but I made Mickey Mouse pancakes instead, by Tanner's request. I had to run to the store and saw that it was Donut Day! I had no idea Tanner's birthday was national donut day, haha! Veryyyy cool ;) 

I took Tanner and Landon to Fat Cats to bowl and do arcades then dropped them off at ALA for their music camp rehearsals. He has not enjoyed this music camp but at least he was with his cousins and he got sung to for his birthday!

Weston was at Teacher's camp and Collin was at FSY so it was just the 4 of us for dinner and he wanted to go to a teppanaki grill so we ate at Osaka, complete with onion volcanos and vegetable bits thrown into your mouth! Oh, and the slightly annoying "happy birthday, HA-ppy birthday, happy birthday, birthday to you" song, with the drum clanging and the whole room singing and clapping! We had fun! Then Grandma and Grandpa came over to visit and give him $8. 

Back to baptism day! Since we were doing our own, we had it at 4pm, which turned out really perfect. Tanner idolizes Collin so he decided to have Collin baptize him. Travis confirmed him. We asked Uncle Craig if he would play his guitar while Landon and Tanner sang the baptism song "I like to look for rainbows" Landon and Craig did that at Landon's baptism and it was the sweetest! Tanner was too nervous to sing on his own so we were so grateful Landon was willing! I loved this part of the program so much. I gave the talk and shared the video from Drawn In about when Tanner felt the Spirit after we had read scriptures and prayed together. Tanner really is so sensitive to the Spirit and it's been tender to know of some of those situations. Another one was when he felt the Spirit singing in the primary program last year. We tried to sing that specific song for the closing somg but my music cut out and so we did our best acapella! Grateful for Grandma persevering as chorister! His cousins Liam and Lane got to stand in the circle when he was confirmed and that was both of their first time getting to do that! So cool. I hope he always remembers his special day and all the people who love him, especially his Father in Heaven!

The inside of the program

The cover and backside of the program

I'm sad I didn't get a picture of this! So here's two screenshot of the video.

So nice that his best buddies, Noble and Ace could be there!

The #8 Neds Crazy Sub completes the baptism circuit for our kids!

We had his family birthday dinner the next week. He loves shrimp and buttered pasta so that's what he got! 

I love this boy! 

Growing up the youngest he talks and acts like his brothers as much as he can. His sentences begin with "bro" or "yo". 

The boy is very easily distracted. I created a sticker chart to motivate him to get ready for school in the morning because I was done prodding him along and doing everything. It kinda works. 

He is much too addicted to video games. Another con (plus to him though) of being the youngest. I held off much longer before the older boys got video games. 

His best friend is Landon. He also loves playing with Noble Monahan and Ace Standage. And a boy named Bradley in the neighborhood. 

He does not like reading. UGH. That makes 4 out of 4. Saddest thing of my life. 

I love his dark hair and dark eyes. It looks deep brown, but when I cut his hair it looks very black on the ground. 

I get compliments on how cute he is all the time. Since he was born I've had strangers stop me to comment on how handsome he is. He always has girls in his school class with crushes on him. It actually worries me. I don't want a kid who skates by in life on his good looks!

He likes watching Dude Perfect, 3 Bare Bears and Ryan Trehan. 

He LOVES playing flag football. 

It's been a process of weaning him from our normal bedtime routine. We used to always lay with him until he fell asleep. I really didn't like it because it took forever and it would make me fall asleep. So now we read books, pray and I sing 3 primary songs to him and then leave. He's responsible for falling asleep on his own. He hates it and fights it, but I think it's good for him. At least he still has body sized pillows with our pictures on them to cuddle. He also has his beanie baby dog named Pickles that he loves.

He loves riding his Super 73 bike around the neighborhood. 

He is a good eater and can put food away like a teenager. He loves burgers with lettuce and pickles. No tomato. He hates tomatoes in general. He also hates lasagna and cheese on sandwiches. He loves shrimp, pot stickers, lettuce wraps, onions, bell pepper, Caesar salad and sushi. He;s the only one who prefers the Annie's Mac and cheese with white cheddar and shell noddles. 

He does not like getting his hair done and begs for a buzz cut. 

He gets left home a lot. Life in a busy family. He doesn't mind and usually begs to just be left home instead of being in long car rides dropping kids off places. Luckily, he's not scared to be home alone like an older sister I know ;) 

Sometimes when his siblings are all gone on weekend nights and Trav and I want to go to dinner, Tanner gets to come along! I don't think he's had a babysitter outside the family in years. 

He is a sweet kid and loves his siblings so much, if only they'd give him the time of day! We are lucky he's in our family!