Ryder's Baptism - It's Great to Be 8

On Saturday November 27, 2010 our youngest child, Ryder, was baptized and became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  It was a wonderful way to end Thanksgiving week. The Toninis (Uncle Greg & Aunt Raena and cousins Drew, Jacob, Corina & Carson) drove up from Houston to stay with us for the holidays, so they were able to be there along with Kimball, Angela, Maya, Adrienne, and Morgan Romney.

There was lots to do in order to prepare since it wasn't part of the regularly scheduled Stake Baptism Day.  Programs, talks, music, etc. all had to be prepared in advance.  With so much going on something did get overlooked - we forgot to bring Ryder's white baptismal clothes to the church!  We discovered this at 10:45 when Ryder went to change and get ready.  Soooooooooo, with only 15 minutes until it was time to start, I drove very quickly home to retrieve the forgotten clothing.  I managed to make it back just after 11:00 (no speeding tickets, thank you very much). Ryder did a quick change and then proceeded to have a very special day.  During the actual baptism, when Ryder was in the font with his dad, he actually got to be baptized twice just to make sure the wording of the baptismal prayer was said correctly. All these little hiccups made for a baptism day that we will remember for years to come.

Guys and Gals

Here are a couple more photos from our recent family photo shoot.  It was almost November and still an absolutely gorgeous day.  I LOVE Texas :)

My Secret Garden - Motivating or Discouraging?

My garden is a mess!  I haven't done anything with it in months.  No watering or weeding or trimming or picking - nothing.  I ended up with a few spare minutes the other day and thought to myself, "I really need to pull up some of the weeds and dying plants before winter sets in."  So I went out and started working and lo and behold found this:

That's right, fully grown, ripe watermelon that I didn't even know were there.  By the way, I didn't even plant watermelon this year - these are volunteers!

I also found these raspberries which was a surprise since it didn't appear my 1 year old raspberry bush was producing berries, but I guess it was.

And of course I have a healthy bush of serrano peppers - again, I didn't even plant serrano peppers this year. They just came on their own.

We had many wonderful cantaloupe this summer, but I thought all the vines were dead and that they had stopped producing - I guess I was wrong!

I also had a wonderful beet crop this summer, and left some of the smaller beets in the ground when I picked the rest to can them - looks like they grew up :)

I also pulled up my 6 sunflower plants at the end of summer - they were attracting too many bees!  I guess they weren't ready to go yet (the bees or the sunflowers).

All in all it was a wonderful surprise harvest.  I still have more beets and carrots and tomatoes and raspberries yet to pick.  I also picked lots and lots of tomatoes this day, but they didn't make the pictures.

We have obviously had some magnificent weather this fall - sunny and 80 degrees most every day.  A rain shower would come through once every couple weeks to keep things wet.  I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't think my garden did half as well when I was actually tending it.  Next year I think I'll just toss some seeds on the dirt and come back in a couple months to see what grew.  Neglect - the key to a bountiful harvest.

Parsley bush is thriving

Cherry tomatoes on the vine

My weeded garden