The Many Costumes of Jake

I have recently been going through all of my digital pictures in an effort to try and complete my boys' baby books. Whilst making that effort, I have stumbled upon a wide variety of pictures of Jake dressed in strange and wondrous costumes. I thought you might enjoy the trip down memory lane with me.

Sammy's Baptism

So, here are the pictures you've all been waiting for. The day that Sammy has been waiting for finally came and she was baptized. We had a whole bunch of family come from So. Cal. for the blessed event and it was a really fun week. Granny arrived first and kicked off the festivities. The kids love having her here and spending some quality Granny time!

Then my Dad, brother Chris and sister Clarissa joined the group. We spent Saturday in Seattle at the Science fiction museum and EMP. We also hit the Crab Pot on the water front for a little crab cook goodness, as you can see below.

There was much tickling to be caught up with. As you can see Papa was a primary target. Even during his nap. I admit, I suggested it, but the boys thought it was a great idea. They tickled my Dad for a good 5-10 minutes before he actually woke up!

My inlaws arrived Friday night with David's brother Ben and David's sister Erika rounded out the party goers on Saturday morning. Saturday evening we had another pizza party and opened presents from all of the family. Sammy got her first set of scriptures with her name on them from David and I. She loves them and spent the entire 2 hours of stake conference reading them and pointing out scriptures to me. Love that girl!


This funny little picture of Clare was taken after she opened her present from Granny. She got Abby Cadaby from Sesame Street, which she loved, but she hates the flash on cameras and always closes her eyes (just like her Granny), so I caught her winking in this picture and thought it was too cute to exclude!


Here is the family gathered before Sammy's baptism. The baptism was fantastic. David is a great dunker and got that girl completely under on the first try. Grandma Z. gave the baptism talk, Grandpa Z. gave the opening prayer, Uncle Chris sang Baptism accompanied by a harp (very cool), Papa gave the Holy Ghost talk, Granny directed the music, and Aunt Biss gave the closing prayer. It was very fun and a really nice afternoon!


Here are Sammy and David in their white clothes. Sammy is wearing a replica of my baptism dress. She tried mine on and decided that she wanted one just like it for her own. So I made her one. Luckily my mom had given me the pattern years ago and pack rat that I am, I still had it! She looked beautiful and told me after the fact that her soul felt sooo clean. I can't believe that my baby has gotten baptized, but here we are. She did a great job and is a wonderful girl!

Sammy's 8th Birthday

Sammy's Birthday was a day to remember. She is such a crack up! She wanted French toast for her special birthday breakfast and wore her old soccer t-shirt because it has an 8 on the back. Here she is after breakfast with her brothers, wearing the birthday head piece she made out of pipe cleaners in the shape of an 8. She did alot of fun things for her birthday. She and her sister got their ears pierced. We have been trying to talk her into it for years and this time when we paced the store at the mall that pierces ears they had Hello Kitty piercing earrings. That apparently tipped the balances and so it was done. She cried more than Clare, but she is very excited about it.

Since her birthday was on a Friday she got to have her birthday party on her birthday. We invited 10 friends over for a Dinosaur themed birthday party. Leave it to my 8 year old girl to pick a dinosaur themed party! So here is the cake I made, which she and all of her friends loved.

We had a really good party and I got alot of feed back from parents saying that their kids had a really good time. The boy sitting next to Sammy in the picture below it Hunter. He is in her class at school and she has promised to marry him when she grows up. He followed her around the entire party. Really cute stuff! Anyway, we had pizza, a pinata, pin the tail on the dinosaur, a dinosaur egg hunt, and a find the dinosaur game. All in all, I think it went pretty well!

Clare's First Birthday

Clare's first birthday was a fun time. Here she is holding her favorite birthday gift, her baby from Granny. She sleeps with it every night and loves it all the time. Baby was her first word after Mom and Dad.

We had a party on New Years day for her birthday and had some friends from our ward over. I made her our favorite 4 layer lemon cake and she loved it!

Over all it was a fantastic day for our girl Clare and she had a really great Birthday!

Merry Christmas from the Z Family!

Merry Christmas Everyone!
In an effort to become more green, we have decided to make our yearly Christmas letter online!

As many of you know we have had a crazy year, as usual!
Last Christmas I was hospitalized with complications from my 4th pregnancy, so we kinda missed out on our 1st Christmas in our new home. However, we received a fantastic late Christmas present, in the form of Clare Marie Zitzelsberger. She was born on New Years day 2009 and though she was born 4 weeks early, she was healthy and perfect. We were all super blessed to have Granny Thorne fly in the day before she was born and take care of us for two weeks. It was a little harder to recover from this delivery, so we loooved having Granny here!

David ,especially, has had a busy year. He is the Cub scout master in our ward, in addition to working on his Masters degree and being elected the HOA president. He still works for Microsoft and has continued to enjoy his job. I think he enjoys all of the things he is involved in and we get to see him now and then.

I've spent most of the year just trying to keep up. Four kids has definitely been a challenge for me, but I have managed to keep making some jewelry here and there, as well as keep up with my two callings in Enrichment and the Activity day girls.

Sammy is as vivacious as ever. She is forever making things. Just like her mom! She is in the 2nd grade this year and loves her teacher Mrs. Meeks. She is doing very well and continues to work hard and enjoy school. Sammy is excited about her impending baptism and is looking forward to turning 8 years old. She played soccer again this fall and is still a day dreamer on the field. We might try gymnastics in the spring!

Jake is 5 years old and doing great as well. His speech continues to improve by leaps and bounds. He works hard to practice and make himself understood. Jake is still his father's son and loves all things Star Wars, computers, soccer and Transformers. He loves his preschool and is learning sign language and spanish. His is a very smart boy!

Josh is my sweet little flirt! He loves to flirt with all of his babysitters at church and is definitely a Thorne boy! He loves to play catch and race cars and is such a good helper. He helps his siblings with all of their chores. He is two years old and definitely mischievous, but he is so sweet that he really makes up for any struggle.

My sweet Clare is fantastic. She is such a mellow little gal that she plays nice with everyone and is always the object of much sibling affection. She has struggled with some of her gross motor skills, but she is doing physical therapy and progressing much more quickly than we expected. She has truly been a blessing in our family!

We hope that you have been as blessed as we have this year. We love you all and hope that the year to come is wonderful for you all!
Love, The Zitzelsberger Family

September Fun

September brought the beginning of school. Yaaayyyy! I was so excited when school started and I think the kids were too. Thank heavens for school. The kids were bored and Mom was going crazy and salvation came in the form of school.

Here are the first day pictures!

We had some fun visitors in September too! Uncle Charles and Aunt Erika came for Labor Day!
We went to Chuck E Cheese for Jake's early birthday celebration. Here he is with his new
Snake Eyes mask and his green frog cupcakes.

Erika and I also took a little trip out to Forks, WA. We had a great time tootling around and taking pictures. Erika is a huge Twilight fan so we experienced all of the Forks goodness.

This was Jake's actual birthday! We had a great time. He got a new
Razor and bike for his special day!

Our wirl wind tour of California!

Sorry it has been so long since I blogged and I now have a back log of pictures to share and tell you about. So lets begin with the high light of our summer. Our trip to California was fantastic! We had a really great time seeing our friends and family!




This is Josh with his cousin Basil having a great time at Granny's house. They were born 2 months apart and had a fantastic time playing together. Below is a picture of Sammy at the beach. We took a couple of beach trips. This one was at Carona del Mar with friends, but we also spent some time at Santa Monica beach with Uncle Steve!













We also went to the Santa Ana Zoo with Aunt Erika and Aunt Stacy! We loved that day! It is such a great little zoo and we had a great time there with our cousins Tom and Ben.















We also went to the Circus with Aunt Stacy and cousin Ben and Uncle Chris, Lauren and Granny. Our cousins Jacque and Azure came too. The kids loved the elephants and tigers the most and had a really great time at the show.













































































One of the big high lights of our trip was Uncle Chris coming home from his mission in Baltimore, Maryland. It was super fun to hang out with him and play rock band all the time. We love Uncle Chris! We also got to spend some seriously overdue and splendid time with our best friends the LaRue family, who now live in Idaho. We partied with them in the pool and celebrated Daddy's birthday. A fun time was had by all and we were ready to come at the end, which means it was good! Thanks to all our friends and family in California for playing with us this summer! We love you!

Clare and her Aunt Erika. Do they look alike or what?