Busy Weekend

Such a fun and busy weekend!  Brennan was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on March 11th in Corvallis, OR.  It was a “Stake baptism” day, but as it turns out Brennan was the only 8 year old in the Stake being baptized that day.  So it was perfect!  It got to be all about him, with his relatives giving the talks and prayers, but I didn’t have to do the planning.

His Great Grandfather Bud Lavell Stevenson gave a great talk on baptism.  He talked about making covenants and exhorted Brennan to listen to the sacrament ordinance.

His Grandmother Laura Templeman gave a beautiful talk on the gift of the Holy Ghost.  She explained to him how the spirit can be felt by anyone – and told the story of feeling the spirit at her friend’s baptism when she was 15 and knew right then that she wanted to be baptized too – and what it means to have the gift of constant companionship.

Brennan was then baptized by his father, Brian Lavell Stevenson, as well as being confirmed a member by him.  The blessing he received during the confirmation was very nice.  He was told how much his Heavenly Father loves him and that Brennan has a wonderful sensitive personality and an inquisitive mind.  Heavenly Father is pleased with his curiosity, inquisitiveness, and ability to really ponder and think about things.  He was blessed to use these qualities to be in the service of others throughout his life.

In attendance was: Myrna and Bud Stevenson, Judi and Barry Stevenson, Laura and Gary Templeman, Shannon Robison, Devon and Ben Parmenter as family.  Also Brennan’s primary teacher and his wife (Rust), primary leaders (Velarde, Russell, Smith),the Bishopric representative (Russell), Stake representative (Elton), and the stake baptism coordinators (Anderson).


I teased on facebook that “you know this was heaven-approved because of the white halo above his head.”  Lol

These little Velarde boys were very jealous about not being in our family pictures, so we did some friend pictures too.

The four Lavells.  Sounds like a singing group, right?

I had to post all the shots here.  Because of Asher.  That kid is such a weirdo.


After the baptism, we headed over to my parents house for a pleasant dinner.  It was fun to get together as Stevensons and Templemans.

The following day was Mother’s Day, so that was fun to have to have two additional mothers in town!  And, even better, Brian was a speaker in Sacrament Meeting.  Very cool for his parents and grandparents to be here for that.  He spoke about the influences of the mothers in his life and was very flattering towards me.  Grossly exaggerated, although he says he meant every word.



Later that evening, Elder Greg Stevenson made his Mother’s Day “call”.  We video chatted with Greg, us here in Oregon, Adam, and Peter and Jill.  Brian had set up the webcam on our TV, so we were all able to be on it together.  The boys were thrilled and said all sorts of silly things.  It was VERY cool to be able to do that these days.


Lots of just hangin’ around at our house


Brennan read Lego Ninjago to Grana…


While Asher read to Grandma Myrna and Grandpa Bud.



Saturday before the baptism, we were able to watch Brennan at his soccer game.  Tide won again.  They’re undefeated.   It was pretty hot outside though, and that showed with several of the kids, including Brenny.  He’s number 4.


Asher caught a nice shot of his chubby Mama

Finally, backing up… Friday morning held a Mother’s Day Tea at Asher’s preschool.  It was super cute.  I only got this one picture, plus video of the songs.  I’ll see about posting those later.  Such a busy weekend though!