A Sunday Photo Session

We are loving our sweet new baby, Adam!

We took some time on the first Sunday after he was born to hold an informal family photo shoot.

Our happy family of 6!

 Four cute Tanner children.

Mom and kids. 

Grandma Tanner and the grandchildren.

 Mom and newborn son.

 Proud parents.

Three family generations.

Welcome baby Adam!

We are thrilled to announce that Adam Jacob Tanner joined our family on Monday, April 20th, at 2:52 a.m. after a 2.5 hour labor. He entered the world weighing in at 10 lbs and measuring 21.5 inches long.

Mom is so glad that Adam is finally here!

Proud Daddy.

Grandma Tanner travelled all the way from Utah and was one of the first to meet him.

A brother for Zach!

Beaming big sister Anwyn.

Thrilled big sister Lily.

The four Tanner children together for the first time.

About the name: I knew early on in the pregnancy that I liked the name Adam, and I mostly referred to him by that name in my head. Jared was convinced of the name Adam when we watched General Conference and Elder Holland spoke about Adam and Eve. We deliberated a little more on the middle name. The children had been suggesting names throughout the pregnancy (most of them a little ridiculous and silly). One day Lily suggested Jacob, and Jared and I both remembered how much we like that name. So we went with Jacob, because we think it is neat that the older sibling were able to make a contribution to his name. Both names are biblical, obviously. Adam means "man", and Jacob means "supplanter" or "holder of the heel". Jacob  can  also mean "may God protect" (we like that meaning better:).

General Conference and Easter

When General Conference and Easter fall on the same weekend, it makes for a busy time! Especially with Zach's birthday thrown into the mix. We really wanted our children to feel the significance of General Conference and Easter, so we did a few things leading up to the weekend. Beginning the Saturday before, each evening we read a little bit about what happened that day in the last of the Savior's life. We hung the summary and related pictures on our kitchen cabinets, and we also read the summaries found here. Throughout the week we watched a number of the Easter focused Mormon Messages.

Our FHE on Monday night was centered on the importance of General Conference and how to prepare and take notes.

We unfortunately ended up with a few sick kids during the week. Lily got it first with a fever and pinkeye (Sunday-Thursday), and then the fever and yucky-ness hit both Anwyn and Zach on Friday. So they ended up spending a lot of the weekend resting on the couch. The talks were wonderful of course! We hung up pictures of the apostles in the hallway and used sticky-notes to record the key messages of their talks.

Jared made our traditional conference crepes and cinnamon rolls.

Sunday in between conference sessions the children did an egg hunt outside, and then decorated eggs.

It was a nice weekend spent with family, hearing inspired messages, and remembering and pondering the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

A superhero birthday party for Zach

Zach wanted to have a superhero party to celebrate his birthday. We kept it pretty simple and had 5 of his friends from church. The superhero theme was pretty easy; we focused our activities around a superhero training camp.

 The first activity was create your own weapon, Captain America style. Everyone decorated their own shield using a template I found online.

We used the finished shields to knock over a tower of stacked cups.

Then we headed outside for Spiderman web practice (using cans of silly string). The cans were a little hard for 4-5 yr.olds to operate, but with a little help it worked out. 

We made a tower of boxes and the kids took turns doing the Hulk smash (with an inflatable Hulk punch glove).

In the patio the kids practiced their skills on a training obstacle course (created by Anwyn): ball catching, shooting, jumping, balancing, etc.

 We had a simple lunch of PBJ sandwiches, pretzels, cheese cubes, and strawberries. Then we headed outside to blow bubble using Superman Super breath.

And finished things off with presents and cupcakes.

It was a really fun party, and we are thankful that Zach has such a great group of friends to share the day with!

Zach turns five!

Our little boy is now five years old! Zach has been looking forward to his birthday for a very long time, and we were happy to celebrate him.

Here are 5 things we love about Zach:

1) He is funny and fun to play with.

2) He is pretty fast.

3) He has good Star Wars descriptions

4) He has cute freckles and great hair.

5) He gives the best hugs and kisses.

Here he is with some of his art at the preschool art show. His painting on the right says "This is the pond and a frog. The frog is jumping out of the water."

Zach is such a sweet, lovable little boy who is full of life. He enjoys his 3-day a week preschool, he recently graduated from speech therapy, and he loves all things Star Wars. We are so blessed to have him in our family.