Last photo from camping in the cabins
Timmy piled all the camping stuff on the couch and set up a chair for a photo booth. So I took his picture.
Bubby wanted a turn too. There's a sign on the chair telling you to sit there for the photo booth.
Here's a sign about the photo booth.
Henry
I made Hyrum pose for me, so he acted silly because he didn't want to do it.
And that is the official missionary photo. I'm giving it to the ward to make a plaque, and it's also on my wall.
His friend JD gave him that tie tack. He was so happy! Ha ha!
Just dinner. I just liked that we were mostly all sitting here together, so I took a picture.
Peace out!
I'm not sure where he learned to say that, but I have it on video. XD
Timmy made a shop. You can buy an apple, or a bomb, or an fire arrow, or potion.
Benji's band concert (He's way in the back, of course.)
Putting things away after the concert.
The band concert was on Joshua's birthday. We had a party after the concert. Joshua chose orange cake. I found a recipe, but it didn't end up tasting very orangey. I put orange extract in the whipped cream too, though, so that was yummy. And tasted like orange.
Joshua likes to make mini donuts in the oven. He's been using a muffin pan with foil in the middle to make the hole. I thought he would really enjoy this. I was right! :)
Guardians of the Galaxy shirt
New shoulder bag
This one was my favorite. It got him to laugh, and making Joshua laugh is like my favorite thing ever. XD
I was asking Joshua for suggestions for birthday presents, and one of the first things he said was, "I need a plush Hyrum." He was joking, I knew, but I thought that would be so fun to make, and I knew it would make him laugh. So I made it!
Looks just like him. ;)
Hyrum and Michael playing on Hyrum's computer, and Henry helping.
Benji made this cell model cake. I thought he did great! And I loved that we got to eat the leftover bits of cake. :) He put on labels on toothpicks after this picture, but he took them off before he went to school because the foil made them fall over. Then it turned out that they were actually required. So he didn't get a very good grade. D: Dang it! Well, it looked cool.
Henry was mad that Papa went for a walk without him, so he and I went for a little walk. We read his book, and it was nice. (Also, hooray for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library! They send us such fun books!)
This was Hyrum's last Saturday at home, and he spent it packing up his room into his cedar chest, packing his suitcase, and sharing things he didn't want anymore with his siblings. He's got a cap gun in his hand. He doesn't like the smell of the caps, so he insisted that we do it outside.
He also gave Timmy this tube of bubbles.
And he gave Papa a ride to the sink to put a dish in there and then to the bag holder to get a new bag for the garbage.
Almost full! He says it's full to the top. I don't think I could bear to look. Even this kind makes me a little teary.
Hyrum gave such a good talk for his farewell. He's really made progress in preparing and giving talks in the last few years, and I was quite proud.
We had Aaron and Kenzie's family, Paul and Carrie's family, Cousin Anders and his family (He had to leave right after Sacrament Meeting, though because his youngest was not feeling well. Poor kid was green.), Grandma and Grandpa Burk, and Susie and Rachel. Jeremy sang Come Thou Fount to the tune of O My Father. It was lovely.
After Sacrament Meeting, my 3 little boys would NOT go to class, so I brought two of them to Relief Society with me. Jeremy was stuck with Evelynn and Henry (at least Grandpa helped) in Priesthood. Timmy sat on my lap and kind of fell asleep, and Bubby played with Ashlynn's phone.
We used canned beans to do beans with chips and cheese. It was so easy and it turned out good. Jennifer brought Tom and all her kids to lunch, and she brought like 80 cupcakes. We made them disappear. Yum!
Jennifer brought some costumes that her kids have grown out of. Timmy was so happy to be Gandalf. XD It distracted him from bugging me to play Benji's game, too, so that made me happy too. :)
Any time us Burks were all sitting together Hyrum used to beg to play this game. They call it picture sentence. I suppose it really should be called sentence picture if anything. ;) Everyone gets a piece of paper and writes a sentence. Just whatever. And then they hand it to the next person who draws a picture to go with the sentence. And then they fold over the sentence so only the picture is showing, and the person has to write a sentence about the picture. And then they fold that over and so on. At the end we all unfold the papers and pass them around and laugh. It's really funny how convoluted those things get by the end. :) We just had to play this one more time for Hyrum.
Aaron and Grandma demanded pictures as they left. There's one of Jeremy, Hyrum, and me, and one of just Hyrum and me floating around somewhere, but I can't find out who has it to get it from them.
This was after Hyrum was set apart. Our good friend and home teacher John Clegg showed up as we were coming out of the stake center and gave Hyrum a multitool and some good work gloves. John is such a good guy. I though that was so nice. And this is the only picture I have from that night. Hyrum came home and was all freaked out about getting everything packed. He hadn't quite finished, and he kept finding one more and then one more and then one more thing that needed to go in his already crowded suitcase. Poor guy. We finally sent him to bed.
The blessing he got was so nice. I have forgotten most of it. What I do remember was that he'd travel safely, that he'd love the people and they would love him, and that he would have good health. (You know, all the things that are important for a mother to hear.) There were other things about learning to be an effective missionary and bring souls to Christ. It was just lovely. Bubby and Henry ran around while the blessing was going on, but if I'd grabbed them I'd have missed the blessing. I decided there was nothing I could do. They will learn. They all do.
But anyway, there is nothing like that, having your son set apart as a missionary. I'm thankful.
