Baby Margaret's Baptism

Baby Margaret was baptized Sunday. She is such a sweetheart...she slept through most of the service, aside from the startling awakening when the water was sprinkled on her head. Then she went right back to sleep, much like she is doing in the picture below!



Aunt Beth got the family christening gown all pressed and ready for the 16th covenant child in our family to wear. Everyone that has worn it {except for Aunt Ruth} is in the picture above.

After church we headed over to Lee and Alice's Robert's house (at least according to Mason it is Robert's house) for a delicious lunch and fellowship with family and friends.

Giving Thanks

We enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving feast at Graem's Aunt Linda's this year. The Duncans would have made the pilgrims and indians proud with their cooking skills!

My little turkeys...










The Duncan great-grandchildren...we were missing a few. You can kind of get the idea in this picture that the boys vastly outnumber the girls...there are actually 17 boys and 9 girls total!!


The grandchildren + spouses


It was no surprise that the "little tractor" was a big hit with Mason...










The aunts...

He's Come A Long Way...

A blog is nothing more than glorified online brag book, right? Well, I'll use this post to brag on my hubs.

Some of you probably saw this write-up in the paper amidst all the post-election day stories a couple of weeks ago.



I'm so very proud! And now you know who to contact if you need supplemental insurance. :)

This reminded me of another clipping that I have of Graem. Do any of you remember the Zipsheets -- the yellow coupon papers that used to be all over USC campus? I'm not sure if they're still around or not; I haven't seen one in years. Anyway, Graem was featured in one of the Zipsheets.



This "clipping" hung on the bulletin board in the kitchen of the Melting Pot for years {we met while working together at the Melting Pot}. I'm sure it will be a surprise to him that I have kept it all this time. It is probably 12 or 13 years old. I find it so funny -- the misspelled name, big stars, his serious face and torn head -- it all cracks me up!

Yeah...he has come a long way...from the Zipsheet all the way to The State.

We are Thankful for...

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I thought I would share one of Mason's favorite things to thank God for.

Lately he has been saying the prayer before we eat. His preferred prayer is "God Our Father." For those of you (like myself) who grew up with "God is Great, God is Good," here are the words to "God Our Father," to the tune of "Frere Jacques":

God our father, God our father,
We thank you, we thank you,
For our many blessings, for our many blessings,
Amen, amen.

For some reason, Mason gets hung up on the "for our many blessings" part and instead he says "for our many napkins."

Happy Birthday, Aunt Nancy!

Graem's Aunt Nancy celebrated her 70th birthday this week. The Duncan family had a big surprise party for her which was fun for all ages -- but I'm fairly certain that Mason had the most fun of anyone!





Graem's cousin Brannon and his wife Jennifer own a company that rents out inflatable jumpers, slides, etc and they brought a couple to the party for the children to play on.

My mother-in-law gets photo credits for most of these pictures...

Sliding down the traditional way...



When that got old, he got adventurous and went down head-first on his stomach...



Then he started taking flying leaps into the air...





My friend Tara says that this picture epitomizes our little wild man. For sure!!





Little brother wanted so badly to climb to the top of the slide...but he ended up having the bounce house all to himself while the big kids were occupied with the slide!

Cowboys and Indians

I can hardly believe that I was able to convince Graem to go along with our family costume...he was such a good sport.



We celebrated Reformation Day at church on the morning of 10/31, and as usual, we celebrated our buddy James's birthday that afternoon, followed up with trick-or-treating.





The children were surprisingly cooperative with the group picture this time!!
The sugar from the candy had yet to hit their systems at this point.



Notice baby Frances in the picture above. What an answer to prayer and absolute miracle this baby girl is.







The little indian wanted to do whatever the big kids were doing.





He didn't get a chance to swing at the pinata until after it was down, as you can see from the candy scattered all over the ground. That didn't seem to bother him -- he still enjoyed bashing the empty pinata.



Our neighborhood is great for trick-or-treating because it is relatively flat and there are sidewalks throughout. We ended up just going to the homes of neighbors that we know -- and after just visiting a handful of homes on our street we had already acquired more candy than we needed! So we headed home to hand out candy to the other trick-or-treaters. I honestly think our boys enjoyed handing out candy more than they enjoyed trick-or-treating!

Zoo at the Zoo

We made a last-minute decision last Friday to go to Boo at the Zoo...and yes, it was a total "zoo." If we decide to go back next year, we will definitely make this a mid-week event because Friday night was entirely too crowded. Good thing we were with the Smyths and had a good time despite the crowd.

Mason was in his cowboy costume once again...in fact, it may have triggered some type of identity crisis, as he now insists on being called a cowboy, as in, "I'm not a little boy, I'm a cowboy." A few weeks ago he corrected someone in a similar way by telling them, "I'm not a little boy, I'm a man."

We had an unseasonably warm October, and I had been waiting for an opportunity for Roper to wear this sweet pumpkin sweater, which Mason wore last year. Last Friday night was finally cool enough for a sweater, and I knew Ro would have more opportunities to be a little indian over the weekend.



And now we know that our double stroller can actually accommodate three children. :)

Spidey was cracking me up with his web-throwing skills...the cowboy left his guns at home, otherwise there would be no zoo animals left.









The bigger boys roasted some marshmallows...



And the little pumpkin ate the marshmallows...



I think Jude really wanted to ride in our stroller with the other children, but of course it was beyond maximum capacity. But this ride made up for it...

Backblogged

Pardon the hokey title...but I'm truly so behind on my blogging. My cousin teases me that I'm a binge blogger. Guilty! I'll try my hardest to catch up over the next few days.

So...now that little man is 15.5 months old, I thought I would post his 15-month stats.

We had a visit to see Dr. J, accompanied with flu shots for both boys (we actually did the flu mist for big brother, although I'm convinced that the shot would have been quicker and less painful overall).

He is tipping the scales at 25.5 lbs (65th percentile) and 32.75" (92nd percentile).

A Halloween post is forthcoming...but I thought I'd share these post-trick-or-treating/post-blue tootsie pop pictures.



He was cracking himself (and us) up with his blue tongue...



A bathtub post was long overdue...the last one I posted was before this fella was even part of the fam...





On an unrelated note, I prefer not to use the flash on my camera because of the annoying shadows!! But sometimes when taking pictures indoor at night there just isn't enough light for the lens to properly focus...the only shot that turned out okay without the flash is the first one. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to remedy this (short of buying more camera equipment)?? We don't get tons of natural sunlight in our house, so this can be a problem even during the daytime.