Eight is Great!

This year Tate's birthday seemed to be celebrated over and over and over. But it's a special year, so I suppose that's okay. Let's just not do this every year!

With a new baby I just wasn't up to doing a huge birthday party this year, so we decided to celebrate quietly at home. Camille made this fabulous birthday sign for Tate and hung it on our front door.

During the day Tate invited his friend Isaac over to go swimming in the pool. They had fun doing "tricks," most of which seemed to include displacing water onto someone else (namely Camille).

Other tricks included sitting on water and hanging from things.

Okay, so maybe they didn't sit on water.

But they did do some cannon balls!

For dinner that night we had Tate's favorite Hawaiian Haystacks. While I was doing dishes and cleaning up from dinner, Todd took the kids to take out the trash. When they didn't come back right away I ventured downstairs to investigate, and this is what I found.

They took one of the milk jugs out of our recycling bin and decided to shoot it with Tate's nerf gun. Tate would say, "Pull!" and Todd would toss the milk jug into the air while Tate shot it down. Of course we all had to have a shot at it. I just love how Todd can take ordinary tasks and make them so enjoyable. What a wonderful blessing it is to have such a wonderful husband and father in our home.

We wandered back upstairs and finished with family home evening on baptism (yay!). Baptism is always fun to talk about, but with Tate turning eight it was especially exciting. It was a little hard to concentrate with dessert and presents following, though. For dessert we had some yummy pumpkin cupcakes with a cream cheese filling and whip cream on top. Happy Birthday, Tate!

For his birthday this year Todd and I got Tate a new set of scriptures. I think Tate knew they were coming, because when he finished reading the Book of Mormon in June he begged, "Pleeeease. If you got me a set of scriptures for my birthday can I have them now?" Tate wanted to read more of the scriptures so intensely, we didn't want to curb his enthusiasm and gave it to him early.

We did, however save his new scouting uniform for his birthday. He was so excited and looks so sharp! He wore it for two days in a row with the rational, "Mom, it looks clean and smells clean." Then I had to pry it off him so I could wash it and he put it on right out of the dryer. He's so excited to be a cub scout!

Tate really wanted a picture in his new uniform

and insisted that it be "out in the nature."

 Of course Camille can't stand to be left out of a picture.

Before we got our proud scout above, we got the following pictures.

This picture totally cracks me up!!! Camille runs in at the last second, and Tate wants his scouting picture so bad, he just lifts up his hand to stop her and continues smiling. I think I find it so hilarious because this typifies their relationship. So to appease Camille and get Tate his desired scouting picture, we did a sibling shot first.

And then I got suckered into throwing a birthday party for the friends...