Congratulations Lanae on Your New Baby Boy! :)

Today Lanae had her 3rd baby boy - I hope I'm not stealing her thunder by writing about it first - I'm just so excited to hear the news: Cayden James Larson.  We're so happy for her and the rest of the Larson family - 3 boys!  Crazy.  

Carly cooked a great chicken dinner with rolls, mashed potatoes and grilled zucchini.  Amy really missed out on some yummy yum stuff.  Maybe sometime this week we'll be able to see her.

I went to an entrepreneur roundtable meeting for most of the day Saturday, meeting 9 new folks, and deciding to start a new company with 2 brothers that live over an hour away - not sure how that's going to work out, but we'll see.  Concept: redstartup.com - a company designed to offer young companies resources (like legal help, accounting, marketing/design/branding, etc. ) that most startups desperately need, but can't afford.  We'd be able to do it by taking a piece of equity up front, and having the costs be tied to revenues once the company begins generating sales.  Mostly geared for service-type businesses where the entrepreneur has some experience in the field they're pursuing.  

Met with 2 financial planners, reluctantly I might add,  later in the day on Saturday.  We need to get life insurance and a 529 plan setup for our baby girl for a college fund - they're going to get quotes over for both of those.  Great thing about owning your own company - you can expense these type of investments out tax free going in, and tax free coming out - if you do it right.

Today I was set apart as 1st Counselor in the Elders Quorum - this is now my 7th time to serve in an Elders Quorum presidency.  Still teaching gospel doctrine to the 14-15 year olds, which I really enjoy.  Carly is still doing the ward bulletin, and I have a funny feeling she may be called to the nursery here soon.  She's been helping out the last 2 weeks with some pretty violent little boys (one hit her in the eye with a book and almost gave her a black eye).

Carly went down to Tuscon this weekend to help out with Job's Daughters.  I really admire her dedication to the things she believes in.  I've been to one ceremony before, and I gotta admit: it was boring.  But she loves it - go figure.  I hope our kids are active in either DeMolay/Jobs Daughters, or Boy scouts/girls scouts - I think we're pretty much going to require them to be in one of those 2 organizations - both teach faith in God, good works, and help the youth prepare for the future. 

We attended the temple on Friday morning - we've found Friday mornings to be the best time for us lately.  Our goal is to go twice a month and we hope to go this Thurs evening with our ward, which, we've never done.  What can I say - I'm just not into "social worship".  I prefer things quiet when I'm there.  But, I think we should give this one a try this Thurs.  The Mesa temple is one of the busiest temples in the world, apparently.  I believe it - even on a Friday morning, the session is pretty packed.  Evenings are very difficult to get in.  Can't wait for the new temples being built in Phoenix and Gilbert - Gilbert is just a few minutes away.

This past Wednesday I was elected President of our local Toastmasters group - I hadn't planned on running, let alone winning, but one of the members put me on the ballot (without my "consent", I might add).  Now that I've been elected, I've got a bunch of ideas on what we might do to become a better club.  Some ideas: having a prayer to start off each meeting; having members pledge to the toastmaster oath prior to joining; having ribbon or trophy awards rather than just pieces of paper that go in the trash; video recording of the speeches; postings on youtube and facebook to create a better PR outreach; more club socials/game nights at members' homes, and a few other ideas...The other 6 leadership positions are all filled by women, so I'm sure I'll have my hands full.  (FYI: Carly served as the VP of Education the last 6 month term, and she did an amazing job at it - the club will definitely miss her hard work and contribution; I wish she was still serving; I've never been in a leadership role in Toastmasters before, so this will be new for me.)

We got a TON of toys from Shawn and Chad (Ken's daughter and her husband) and their little girl, Chloe, whose 15 months old (and just so adorable I might add).  With all these new/used toys, our little girl may just be spoiled after all.  :)  Not such a bad thing I suppose.  I'm going to be the biggest sucker for anything she wants.  Bye-bye discipline-daddy.  I wonder how Ben handles 4 girls - I'll have to ask him sometime.  I can only imagine.  Sounds like from Tonia's most recent post that he's doing a great job at being a super-daddy.  I hope I can do the same for our kids.

Oh before I forget, Carly and I want to make some predictions on our little girl's size, date and other stuff: 

Kent thinks she'll be:

17 inches

6 lbs 3 oz

brown hair

blue eyes

10:58 am

Sept 3

Labor will last 3.5 hours

Natural birth (no medicine/c-section)

Carly thinks she'll be:

21 inches

7 lbs 8 oz

Blond hair

blue eyes

9:30 pm

Sept 15

2 hours

Natural birth (no medicine/c-section)

Those are our 'bets'.  We'll see...

Hope Lanae and her family are doing well - we hope to visit sometime soon whenever she's feeling up for some company - perhaps in a few weeks or next month sometime.