Deb was baptized!

Debbie was baptized last Saturday, Oct. 23!

She will definitely remember it as the water heater for the baptismal font was broken so the water was FREEZING!

Her two favorite Primary teachers: Sister Tammy Swensen (l) and Sister Debbie Daley (r)

Lil' Debbie is so sweet. She tries hard to be a good girl. She is always asking what she can do to help around the house. Usually she sees something that needs to be done and just does it without asking. If you were to ask anyone in our family "Who is the happiest?" the answer would be "Debbie!"

We love you Deb!

Happy Easter!

The past few days have been full of Easter celebrations.

The annual dyeing and decorating of the Easter eggs.

An Easter egg hunt with cousins.

And what the kids call a Jerusalem dinner. This is the first year we have done this but I think it will become an annual tradition. We ate foods that Jesus would have eaten: unleavened bread, nuts, goat cheese, dried fruit, lentils, etc.

We are enjoying General Conference. Today's messages were all wonderful. So many talked about the family! We have been focusing on The Family Proclamation this year in our own family because it is the 15th anniversary of when it was first read by Pres. Hinckley. We felt it was important for us to teach the kids all the truths contained in it.

We hope you all have a wonderful Easter!

Thanksgiving Day

We celebrated Thanksgiving up at Aunt Anna's house. There were 43 people there but there were still 15 Wadsworths missing. Crazy!



Julia is the 36th grandchild. She slept the whole time and was passed around so others could snuggle with her.


The younger cousins had fun playing with toys after the meal.



And a game of Ultimate Frisbee helped the older cousins and aunts and uncles burn a few Thanksgiving calories off.

We had a wonderful day. The weather was beautiful, the food was delicious, and the company was even better!

Happy Birthday Ira!!

Three is a magical age. You are big enough to be independent in some things but still small enough to crawl on mom or dad's lap for snuggling.

Ira is now three! I surprised him with this "road construction" cake. There's a loader in the gravel pit, a dump truck just dumping a load, and a grader leveling a road. It was all he could do to control his hands from driving the grader and dump truck around before we sang Happy Birthday to him. As soon as the singing was over he dug in.



Ira is such a joy to have around. He loves to sing "How Firm a Foundation" and "I Hope They Call Me on a Mission" at the top of his lungs. He loves to tease his sisters, line up his tractors and trucks "just like dad does his!" and tries to go to work with Joseph as much as he can. He is ALL boy! And Joseph though having so many sisters would "sissify" him. ;)

Sara's Locks

Sara decided her hair was long enough to donate 10 inches to Locks of Love. Last Wednesday was the big day.

The before photo to document the length.

The braid ready to be cut.

I loved being able to capture Sara's reaction and the braid being cut in one shot.

Her new do and her braid.

Isn't she pretty? This style so fits Sara's personality. She's like a little pixie or fairy.

7th Heaven

Debra turned 7 yesterday!!!

As is tradition she got to open her presents first thing in the morning. She received two new books from Grandma and Grandpa Ventura, two beautiful outfits for Felicity her American Girl doll (you can see them on the floor at the bottom of the picture), a new art kit complete with crayons, markers, paint, and colored pencils, and a poncho and jacket.

Another tradition we have is the birthday child gets to decorate their cake. Debbie decided she wanted to have a beehive cake. Easy for me as Pere gave me a beehive cake pan last year! Deb just wanted to drizzle yellow frosting all over to look like honey. I thought the beehive cake very fitting as Debra means bee. =)

Do you think she was excited to blow out her candles?

Debbie is always so happy. She seems to have a constant smile on her face. She is helpful and likes to do her chores first thing in the morning. She also has an uncanny ability to tell you the time without looking at a clock. She's the best at doing this as it gets closer to her bedtime. For example, the other night Joseph covered up the clock and asked her while we were all riding in the Suburban, "Deb, what time is it?"

She answered, "Um, I think it's 7:48."

Joseph uncovered the clock and it said 7:51. "You're off by three minutes!" he said.

I replied, "Actually, she's exactly right. That clock is three minutes fast. Look at the time on your phone." Sure enough it was 7:48!

We love our sunshine-y lil' Deb!

Ammon and Charmane's Wedding

Ammon and Charmane were married last Wednesday in the Reno Nevada Temple. It was a beautiful clear cold day. A reception was held in Fallon that night and another one held in Winnemucca on Friday. Here are a few photos from all the wedding festivities.

Charmane and Ammon just coming out of the temple.

With their parents.

The wedding rings

Grandma and Grandpa W with all 34 grandchildren ranging in age from 18 to 1 year.

Abby's Baptism

We are so behind on this blog it's embarrassing!

Abby had a wonderful baptism on Dec. 6. Both sets of grandparents were able to come.



We are so thankful to have Abigail in our family. She is so cheerful and loving. She has a tender heart and is easily moved to act on those feelings to help others around her.

Thanksgiving 2008

Thanksgiving is our favorite holiday. It seems to get lost between Halloween and Christmas which is nice in a way because it is able to escape all the commercialism that other holidays have. We were able to go to Fallon and gather at Nathan's house for Thanksgiving dinner.

Nathan is in the process of building a new HUGE living room so we ate in there. Besides the big buffet table there were five other tables set up for eating and there still wasn't enough room to seat the 44 people that were there.



Cousins had a great time playing.






The adults enjoyed telling stories, jokes, and more stories.





And a couple of sheriffs even decided to join us! (sorry no pictures of that)

It was quite the memorable day.

An American Girl Doll Tea Party!

Abby turned eight years old on Nov. 13th. For her birthday party she wanted an American Girl Doll Tea Party.

All the girls brought their favorite dolls. First they each made matching bracelets for themselves and their dolls. Then they played "Don't Eat My Doll" and a American Doll matching game.

Abby wanted a polka dot cake. We made a Funfetti cake and decorated it with frosting and huge dot sprinkles that we found.

While the girls played thier games, I set the table for their "tea".

Since we don't actually drink tea I made Hot Orange Punch. it was delicious!

Each doll also got their own cake and tea cup. I went to the thrift store and bought clear glass teacups for 25 cents a piece. It made the girls feel so grown up being able to eat of my china plates and have their own tea cups. They got to take their cups home. ☺

The tiny cakes turned out so cute! I posted the instructions for making them on my other blog.

Everyone got to help blow out their dolls' candles. The candles I got for the real cake were sparklers that said they had to be exstinguished in water. What I didn't know where the candles on the doll cakes were relight candles. The girls thought they'd blown them out only to have them magically relight. All their blowing blew out the sparklers and we had to exstinguish their candles in water instead. We had a great laugh about it.

Ira Turns 2!!

Ira turns two today. I can't believe how fast the time flies!



He was so excited with his tractor cake. Two year olds are so easy to please with horribly decorated cakes.


Here is his embarrassed face. He realized everyone was looking at him while we sang Happy Birthday.

It took Ira six tries to blow out two candles. Oh and there was quite a lot of spit involved too. :D

He received a lot of new tractors and cars, an I Spy book , and new cowboy boots. We also ordered a set of All About John Deere Tractors DVDs for hom. He's been watching them all afternoon.

Eve's Locks of Love

Ever since Marie donated her hair to Locks of Love two years ago, the other girls have been growing out their hair to do the same. Eve decided last week she was ready to get her hair cut. Today we all made the trek into town to watch. Eve had 15 inches of hair cut off. Here's her before and after photos. She loves the new cut! She wanted something similar to Anna-Sophia Robb's hair cut in Bridge to Terabithia. I think Eve's new do looks great on her.

Happy Birthday 9th Sara!

Sara's birthday was yesterday. I can't believe she is nine already!

She wanted to have cherries for her birthday cake. She baked it and decorated it herself. Didn't it turn out cute?

Happy Birthday Sara! We love you!!

Happy 10th Birthday Marie!

Merry and happy

Artistic

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Intelligent

Easy-going