Blessing/Easter Weekend 2011

This Easter weekend was really, really excellent. We drove up to the in-laws where we spent two days eating, laughing, and passing Hyrum around to a myriad of family members. I found the cooing and squealing over the many virtues of our boy to be very gratifying. A general consensus was made that Hyrum was so cute, so sweet, so attentive, so patient, so much a mini-Adam and (my favorite!) getting marginally fatter.

We saw Adam's sister Katy speak in stake conference on Sunday, then got in the car and drove 45 minutes to Joe Town to see Adam's sister Beki sing in her ward. She had texted me earlier that morning saying that they could sure use my high voice in their ward choir. I jumped at the bait and assured Beki that I could do it, and then actually got the music and was slightly dismayed to see how much more difficult it was than I had imagined. I spent the sacrament meeting sight-reading and humming very quietly to myself and long story short, I ended up singing with a Joe Town ward choir because my high F is solid. Adam grinned and rubbed my leg when I sat down (he loves to trick me into singing for him) and then Beki's daughter Hailee told me none-too-quietly that she needed to poop, a fact she repeated to her dad Aaron as we left the chapel.

Like I said, a great weekend. Hyrum's cousins sure think a lot of him. When I referred to Hyrum, Bridger's kids would say, "Hyrum Bridger?" as if to clarify and I would nod and they would nod back, satisfied. Also, Hailee calls Hyrum "brother Hyrum" which I think is probably the cutest thing I've ever heard in my life.

After Sunday dinner--a true Easter feast with ham and scalloped potatoes, which always makes me wonder why there's a holiday devoted to turkey and none to ham--we passed the boy around from cousin to aunt to uncle to grandma to grandpa. I think there were probably about 12 people that held him in-between coming home from church and dessert, and the boy bore all the cooing and poking quite patiently.

Before I reward you all with pictures, I wanted to tell you that I hit another parenting first today: that of being pooped on. Hyrum had a magnificently huge blowout this weekend on Adam's grandma's lap when we stopped by to visit and we blamed it on the chlorine-free-eco-friendly diapers we'd gotten as a baby gift. (Adam calls them "the hippie diapers.") I took the boy to our resident thrift store today as an excuse to get out of the heat and when I looked down and realized that poop was dripping onto the top of my Chacos, I left my vinyl copy of Man of La Mancha on top of a huge wooden-colored TV and rushed the boy home with my hand clamped around the leaking leg, trying vainly to seal the poop in.

I blame the hippie diapers too. Onto the pictures.

BEHOLD MY MOM IN HER NATURAL HABITAT.

This is her writing out a grocery list, perched between the baby swing and a gigantic pile of laundry she had washed for us and was getting ready to fold. I think it was around 1 a.m.

Holding the boy while doing some housekeeping.

Blessing weekend! In the Frost corner, we had:

My mom

Al and Q and their four kids.

Boy was I glad we managed to amass so much of my family in one place. (Also: that baby in the middle was born 11 days before Hyrum, and she could've eaten him whole. She was totally amazing.) We also had Julie and Ewan and Alec, and would've had Ben and Crystal and the Tom-Tom, had I not forgotten to invite them. (Hi guys!) 

In the Stradling corner, we had:

Adam's parents and sister Katy

Adam's sister Beki and Aaron and two kids

Adam's brother Bridger and son Saxon

Adam's grandpa

Adam's aunt/uncle Kim and Snuff and cousins Tyanne and Marissa

Adam's cousin Jake and wife Molly

Adam's uncle Alex and daughter Raynelle

Adam's grandma

Adam's friends Eric and Noelle and Valette Lara (my friends too)

Adam's friends Pierce and Valayne Lambson and their fetus

Adam's friends Vicki and Josh Seigfried and their daughter Callie

How many is that? Twenty-seven and a half? Compared to my seven peoples? Anyways, it was a par-tay and at one point, we had between 12 and 15 adults in our 700 square foot apartment at one time. It was a little nerve-wracking for me. And hot. 

My mom was throwing a tea-party for all the kids in the room, while my mother-in-law and sisters-in-law were killing the fatted calf.

All hail the proudest dad in the history of mankind.

Three generations! I think!

Stradling fambly.

Newborns!

A tale of Two Bridgers. (Also: Saxon has a hole in his head. From where his tooth fell out the week before.)

Grandparents!

Aunts!

Grandma!

Okay, and now for pictures that have nothing in common except that I'm not in any of them. Let the candid photos roll.

I think this was a post-bath cuddle attempt that didn't go over so hot with the boy. 

Adam reads to the boy almost every night, and it slays me.

Word.

The closest thing to a smile we've caught on camera so far.

P-p-p-p-pucker face. Isn't he amazing?!

Our little manny.

Alec, who when pressed to say cheese for the camera, pronounces it "cheeeeesh."

Alec sulking because Ewan took the boy away.

BEST PICTURE OF JULIE EV-AR

Dinner last night: trout that Aaron sent home with us from JoeTown, which we stuffed with lemon slices and baked up with bacon. Be jealous...it was incredible.

Adam's version of "sitting up time," as opposed to "tummy time."

This is a Bumbo chair with a nursing pillow stacked on top of it, and the boy in the middle.

He did not love it.

And last but not least, the picture of the boy that makes me laugh myself silly every time:




Yep, it did it again.