The Deacon Pah-r-tay!

For several months I have been feeling like I need to make more of an effort with making sure Xander has a good support system when it comes to his friends. He is a wonderful young man and has a lot of good friends, but I want to make sure I foster those friendships. We are blessed to have a huge group of boys in church that are all about the same age. Right now, there are 12 boys in the deacon's quorum, the group of boys ages 12-13.

So, at the end of January, I invited all the parents of the boys to a dinner at our house. I am kicking myself now that I didn't take any pictures. It was Pinterest worthy, for sure! I was too busy trying to get everything done and ran out of time! Oh, well!

Anyway, dinner was a huge success and I told the parents that I wanted to start getting the boys together more often. Everyone agreed. We volunteered to host the first party, since Xander wanted to have the boys over on the night we had dinner, but I told him they all had to babysit!

So, a few weeks later, we hosted an ice cream sundae party at our house.......
The amount of sugar that went in the bowls was mind blowing! They loved it and had a great time making huge bowls of all sorts of stuff....




I hadn't moved the furniture back into the living room since the dinner, so they all sat on a blanket and ate their ice cream.
Eating ice cream can get serious and some had to lay on the floor to shovel it in!


When they went back for seconds - yes, seconds! the game became "who can put the most whipped cream in your mouth...."






Then we had a "chubby bunny" contest. It was hysterical!



Overall, I think they had a great time!

I remember my younger sisters having a great group of kids they hung out with called the "mormon posse" and I want Xander to have that same experience, where they all help each other out and stick up for each other and build great memories. Some day, these will be the missionaries that go all over the world to preach the gospel and hopefully, the friendships they build now will remain through missions and college and everything life brings!

One of the reasons I wanted to do this also was because of a situation that happened earlier this year. Xander was being bullied on the bus and I mentioned something to a few of the parents of these boys. They spoke to their sons and two of the boys, Avery Olsen and Avery Volgelzang, immediately went to Xander's aide. They made sure they sat with him on the bus and kept this kid away from him. They made a birthday card for him and made sure that he felt loved.

I thanked the parents for this and one of the moms told me that Xander had done the same for her son. He was being bullied at scout camp and Xander stuck up for him and made sure he was never alone with the bullies the rest of the time. She said that she was so impressed with Xander for doing this.

It's these types of situations that made me want to start this tradition. I had crazy, sugar-filled boys at my house for several hours and was exhausted when they left, but it was worth it. Now, we have a standing night each month that we will get the boys together to do something fun together. I am excited for Xander to make these friends and these amazing memories!