Emma's baptism was so beautiful. It was such a memorable day, one we will never forget! I don't think I was expecting to feel quite so emotional. It was perfect--the music, the talks, the prayers, the people--and of course, the baptism and confirmation. Emma and her siblings all felt the spirit so strongly that day. It was evidenced as Rachel sang her heart out during the closing song of "I Am a Child of God." It was evidenced as Emma came out of the font sobbing joyfully with the biggest smile on her face, while exclaiming over and over how clean and perfect she felt. We saw it in Luke as he gave Emma the tightest hug ever after she came back into the room. Ben and I are so proud of our sweet Emma and love her so much! And doesn't she look beautiful???

Right before the big event! It was so neat to see my husband baptize our little girl. What a special bonding moment for us.

We had a luncheon outside afterwards and the weather cooperated wonderfully. I completely overestimated the amount of food we needed, but now we have pulled pork to last us all summer! :) Thanks to all of you who helped out with the food, and I'm sorry if you went home with a pretty full dish still. I'll plan better next time! :) Some of our loved ones:

Opening special gifts. She received some neat keepsakes.

With Grandma and Grandpa Bergin. I'm kicking myself for not ever getting a picture of my whole family (who came all the way from Texas for this!!) with Emma. Oh well.

We are already looking forward to Rachel's baptism in 2 1/2 years!

Happy 8th, Emma!

Our oldest child is now eight! Here is what we did to celebrate. The night before Emma's birthday we had a family dinner with Ben's side of the family. She got some wonderful gifts, including a scrapbook kit! She LOVED putting that together over spring break.

She requested a cherry cheesecake for her birthday cake. My cheesecake-loving dad would be proud! :)

She also got some super cute clothes from relatives, including this darling horse shirt from Grandma!

We got Emma a new bike. She's used her bike for 4+ years and has outgrown it.

For one of Emma's gifts, we arranged to have her go to a nearby ranch and ride a horse for an hour. Rachel and Lauren came too. The ranch owner was great with the kids: taught them the basics of riding, how to get on and off, how to steer, etc. She even set up a little obstacle course with cones for them to practice guiding the horse around. This was the highlight of Emma's birthday and she has asked several times since if we can go back and ride again.

The girls rode a horse named Sadie, 22 years old, which is apparently rather old in horse years. She was gentle and calm and perfect for kids to ride. Emma was in 7th heaven! She even got to lead Sadie back to her stall after and give her a treat.

Lauren loved it too!

Rachel's ride. She was pretty nervous about riding such a big horse, but once she was on she couldn't stop smiling!

After horseback riding, we picked up the boys and Dad at home and headed down to Provo. We stuffed ourselves at Tucano's, went to Rock Canyon Park to play for awhile, and then headed home with an ice-cream stop at Macey's on the way. The weather was gorgeous and we had such a fun time together. Emma at age 8: *Loves horses, of course. :) And she loves to pretend to be a horse, with Luke being the horse-catcher. Too funny! *She REALLY likes to play school with Rachel. She plans out these little lessons and activities and Rachel loves it (most of the time...). :) *Likes to study and learn. She loves to research things in books and on the internet and she even takes notes! *Loves watching movies and eating popcorn. Mulan is a favorite. She looks forward to our Friday family movie night every week! *Still loves trying lots of different foods. *Is a fantastic reader and speller! We love our Emma and can't believe she is EIGHT!

Easter 2012

We got a fancy new camera this weekend and had some fun trying it out. Beautiful blossoms!

The best we could get in the pre-church rush.

The boys

The girls

Egg-hunting!




We hope all of YOU had a fantastic Easter too!

Misc. March

Matching girls

Emma loves to play with Max and make him laugh. It's adorable!

Wow, are all these kids mine??!! We took a trip to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point one Saturday and had a great time.

Love my sweet baby.

My new favorite picture! I love this one of all my kids. And Max sucking his lip? Priceless. He does that all the time and it just cracks me up.

There was a wedding: Belle married Woody. They are living happily ever after. :) Do you like the TP veil???

We had a big family dinner last week when some out-of-towners were in town. 7 out of the 9 kids in Ben's family were there. It was definitely a photo-op!

We've been putting Max in the bath with Luke (and sometimes Rachel) more often and they just love it. Cute boys.

Saturday was a glorious day. We listened to General Conference and spent the rest of the time outdoors. The blossoms are absolutely heavenly these days. I tried to get some good pictures of the kids with the blossoms, but it was almost bedtime and very windy and I wasn't too successful. However, even though they aren't perfect I still love these photos.



Look who's pulling up now! Yep, Max is at that stage. Which means lots of bumps and bruises. He is fascinated by the frig and cruises for it whenever I open it.

Luke caught his first fish! And several more after that first catch. Ben has been fishing numerous times this spring and has taken at least one of the kids with him each time. So cool!

Luke LOVES his daddy! One of "their" things is singing "Baa Baa Black Sheep" together. They have made up several additional verses. Ben plays it on the guitar and they both sing. It's these little moments!

I know I've posted Luke wearing this funny cake hat before and now the kids like to put it on Max!

The weather has been (mostly) fantastic this winter and spring and we have taken many walks and bike rides. Still love my double stroller--that is, if it's being good and not giving me a flat tire!

Rachel and Luke continue to make up funny little games. The latest one is "Help, help!" where one of them pretends to fall down a cushion mountain and is thrown a blankie to be pulled up to safety. Pretty funny.

Rachel's First Fishing Trip

Rachel caught her first trout today! She nearly out-fished me with her Barbie fishing pole, or "Trout Slayer" as I like to call it ;-) We caught our limit of four in about an hour and then released everything we caught after that. We had a delicious trout dinner!

Winter

Max is sitting! He looks adorable sitting and playing with toys. And I love this stage where they just sit and play, not yet crawling everywhere and getting into stuff. Wish it lasted longer!

Love the girls in these curlers. They look so darn cute in them! And they actually work in their thick hair. I've tried so many curling irons and rods and they don't work. But these do and I love the bouncy full curls they create.

Luke is FINALLY potty-trained. It happened in only 10 short days at the beginning of January. Hallelujah! He was truly ready this time. We took a family trip to the Lehi "bucket" pool to celebrate.

What little snow we got was quickly made into a snowman by the kids. They made this one all by themselves, no help from me! Isn't he cute?

Max has this most darling robe. I just love it on him!

Emma's 100th day of school! They made these crazy hats.

The library's annual Fancy Nancy party. So girly and fun!

Playing in the laundry basket

Ben and I got to go on a date for Valentine's Day and it was great. Love my Ben! Emma took a picture of us before we left on our "love date" (what she calls it).

Max is loving his solid food. He loves everything except for avocados and he's not a huge fan of bananas on their own.