Holidays History

The Sedgwick ice-cream birthday cake tradition lives on

The Sedgwick ice-cream birthday cake tradition lives on

Ammon’s Blessing

Dave had the privilege of giving our 5th child, Ammon, a priesthood blessing on Sunday. My mom and dad were in town for the occasion, plus we had all of Dave’s family that lives in the area and the Howells join us. It was a beautiful blessing, and as Dave began the blessing, I really felt that Ammon is a choice spirit of our Heavenly Father. I am so happy that he has joined our family! I’m in love with this sweet little boy that will carry on the Sedgwick name and legacy!

Unfortunately, because of my broken leg, I didn’t have much control over the camera. Caleb got hold of it and took pictures of everything in sight, with most of them turning out blurry. But we did get a few decent ones, so here they are:

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A broken heart …

This morning I stayed home from work for a couple hours so Jess could take a nap after being up with Ammon.  I made the mistake of stumbling upon this video with Ammon asleep on my chest.  It brought me to weeping.  Not tears.  Not teary eyed.  Not emotional.  But weeping.

For several reasons it had a powerful, moving impact on me.  Mainly … our dear friends the Walkers preparing to go through a similar experience with their Andrew in a couple weeks (being so close to friends going through that brings on a type of ‘survivors guilt’ mixed with profound gratitude for the health of your own kids).  I project them and me and Jess in that situation and I lose it.

I’m reminded how fragile and short life can be.  It reminds me of my once-oft-recited mantra: No Regrets.

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Introducing KFHE

KFHE - Kids Family Home Evening

So, here’s how this evolved (within 24 hours) …

Caleb’s been dying to do FHE.  (Our kids take turns with me and Jess in preparing a lesson each week.)  He’s been complaining that we skipped over his turn to do the lesson several times [true].  For some reason, he knew he wanted to do it on Obedience, but he wasn’t sure what he was going to say.

Yesterday, we planned it.  As we were looking up scripture stories about Obedience, he said, ‘Hey how about I do a powerpoint?!’ (His older sister, Madi, did a powerpoint project for school that was very cool about the mission in San Juan Capistrano so that wet his appetite).  So, we started pounding out a powerpoint presentation for FHE the next day (tonight).  Later that evening (after church and dinner) we reconvened to go over the powerpoint again.  Then … lighting struck!

Let’s do a video to go along with the presentation!  Right on!

So, we used the built in camera/mic on the macbook and started recording.  Thus was born the original KFHE video …

I say original because there will certainly be more to come.  AND … drum roll … the big idea (don’t steal it) is to create a web site where kids can upload their KFHE videos from around the world.  I see this starting with the cousins.  From there … going global.  KFHE (Kids’ Family Home Evening).

Click to go to KFHE

Here’s the legalese/copyright info on the video …

KFHE is a non-profit broadcast venture wholly owned and operated by the Sedgwick Family Foundation, if such a foundation were to exist.

KFHE’s mission is to broadcast kid-driven Family Home Evening (FHE) videos on gospel topics in order to entertain, educate, and inspire everyone (their cousins in particular) to be good. Check out mormon.org for more information …

Copy, distribution, or reproduction of any KFHE video is strictly prohibited, unless you really want to. In that case, totally go for it. :)

Jessica’s Un-Surprise Party

We started the day with breakfast in bed which the kids all helped out with.

We were all excited about Jess’ un-surprise party.  We invited family and friends to start showing up to crash our little family birthday pool party and bbq.  I told Jess that I invited some family but they were all out of town or couldn’t make it.  So … we were enjoying a hot summer late afternoon when the first crashers arrived.  By the second or third ‘surprise’ guest Jess gave me the ‘you’re busted’ look.  I made carne asada on the grill and we finished the night with costco’s chocolate cake!

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Jason’s Scholarship

The article at Mormon Times

Check out this cool article about the scholarship my roomates and I started (and many of you!).  Click on the image above.

Spring Break in Utah

We had such a great time in Sundance, Utah, for our spring break this year.  We got really lucky and had lots of fresh powder to play in!  We especially loved having our friends, the Walkers, join us for the week.  They are moving in 2 days and we’ll really miss them, so it was nice to have some time to play together before they leave.  As you can see, we are camera happy…enjoy!

Caption Winner

“I’m crying cause my dad wants me to eat a bell pepper shake, but I’m smiling cause I just called Child and Family Services, who will be here momentarily.”

Thanks for your entries.  The winner, as you can see by the caption above, is Christian Bell.  All of the entries made us smile and laugh.  But, this one made us laugh the loudest.  No wonder he’s a successful window washing entrepreneur and internet mogul: http://www.dontdodumbthings.com/

So … what do you win?  Christian, you win a free vacation for you and your family in beautiful southern california — includes surfing, snorkeling, disneyland, and … wait for it … fruit & veggie vitamix smoothies!  You just need to get here and we’ll take care of the rest.

Christmas-Time Come and Gone…

Here are some pictures from our holiday season.  We had such a great Christmas with the visit of Poppy, grandma Becky, Julie, Beau, and Jacob.  Beau and his girlfriend, Amy, are still with us, but we were sad to see everyone else go!  We got lots of great family time with the Jewkes and the Sedgwicks, and we ate way too much!

If this isn’t enough, you can find a lot more pictures here. :)

Sweet Jessica (Howell)

During our Jason Hoyt Memorial this last April, the boys and I took a moment to reset one of the real breakthroughs in musical discovery by singing (trying to) ‘Sweet Jessica.’  We originally sang this at David & Jessica Howell’s wedding dinner … enjoy: