The Day Half the Family Got Baptized

Just like half of our family was born in a matter of 75 seconds, half of our family was baptized in a matter of minutes. The craziness of October (which begins our busiest time of year), continued into November. On November 1 (that’s right, the morning after staying up late and stuffing their faces with candy), our oldest three children were baptized. It was a beautiful day with many family members and friends.

I still can’t believed that my babies, who weighted 3 pounds at birth and were 9 weeks premature, are eight years old!

Brinlee is such a sweet, helpful, kind, thoughtful, happy, giggly girl. Everyone loves Brinlee. She is never cross, always happy and cheerful, and just pleasant to be around.

Kimball is such a happy, silly, fun boy. He is so good at making friends and including everyone. He loves to make people laugh.

Sawyer is a wonderful helper, a very caring brother, very diligent, a hard worker and self-sufficient. He can be very silly and fun.

My favorite thing is that they are such good friends and take good care of each other while being so unique and individual. They love to be together and with their siblings.

Of course Grandma and Grandpa were there.

They were starting to get really excited.

These amazing kids are also super lucky to have such an incredible dad who loves them so much.

I don’t advertise his awesomeness enough. He is 100% hands on. When he comes home from work, he immediately jumps into the fray, changing a diaper, serving dinner, brushing teeth or tucking in. He cares for them as well as I do, and if I leave for an afternoon or a few days, he is fully capable of doing everything I do. He often takes them out for breakfast by himself on SAturday mornings, or to Costco or anywhere. I don’t know many dads who would do that on a regular basis. I don’t even ask him to. He just does it because he loves them and he loves me.

Brinlee is such a daddy’s girl. She loves him so much that sometimes I think she might explode from the giggle fits he causes.

Sawyer loves to follow Adam around asking questions and listening to his explanations about things like music, nuclear power plants, or anything else they come up with to talk about.

Kimball especially loves to wrestle and tackle daddy. That is their favorite way to play. Good thing is Adam enjoys it too.

Granddad and Gran came for the baptism! We were all so excited that they were there.

We were extra lucky to have cousin Ashlee come. She is going to school nearby, and came up for the baptism.

Our lives changed for the better when these three were born. We became parents that day, and that is a gift I treasure.

We are so proud of them for choosing to be baptized.

Gran and Granddad were the first people in my family to be baptized members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. If not for that, I would never have been born. They brought the gift of the gospel to our family.

After the baptism, we had a couple of talks and I was asked to bear my testimony. I don’t remember word for word what I said, but I will share the gist of it. The word gospel means good news. When I was a missionary in Brazil, I shared the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is eternal families. The atonement of Jesus Christ means that, though we are all imperfect and sin, we can be forgiven through the power of repentance. This means that if we follow God’s commandments, repent when we make mistakes and do our best, we can return to live with our Heavenly Father again and be with our families forever. Brinlee, Kimball, Sawyer, Caisen, Daisy and Georgia will be our kids forever. Adam will be my husband forever. My parents and siblings will be my family forever. No matter what happens in this earthly life to separate us, we know we will be together again as a family one day. That is why we are here on earth, to learn lessons, gain bodies and build our families. Death is not the end, and that is the good news. We could feel such a strong spirit that day. I know that many of our ancestors were there to celebrate this wonderful occasion with us.

This is our good news. These crazies are ours forever, and I love it!

After the baptisms, we all went back for a baptism/birthday partay. Obviously we had cake, along with the customary blow-all-the-spit-you-want-because-you-are-eating-it cakes. Sawyer got cheesecake, Brinlee had chocolate/chocolate, Kimball had strawberry/chocolate.

We were so happy to have so many friends and family join us.

Adam got the big cake. We were celebrating his birthday too.

Sometimes candles are hard to blow out when you get so old.

Or when your kids sneak trick candles onto your cake.

So that is just what happened on the FIRST day of November. In the middle of November we took Brinlee, Sawyer and Kimball to Disneyland (which you can read about in the next post).

Somehow he manages to nap with our kids. I can rarely do that, mostly because they won’t cooperate. He has the magic touch.

Some tragic skin disease? Why, no. That is all that remains of a sugar cookie.

I ran over a screw along the way.

This was our year for Thanksgiving at the Bear Lake house.

I’m thankful for kids tables.

And that I don’t have to sit at them anymore.

Because my five who were born in three years are old enough to sit there alone. Georgia sat at the adult table with us.

I’ve never bought our kids Legos because we’ve always had babies around who might eat them. The boys were overjoyed to get to play with them.

Georgia had fun with the stairs.

Aunt Lisa did pedicures for the girls.

This was a first for them.

Kimball and Caisen playing chess with Garrett. Our kids are in chess club and are very good. Kimball and Caisen are especially good (and also the ones who like it the best and practice the most).