Natalie's baptism

It is strange to have a child old enough to be baptized!  But Natalie is eight, and she was baptized last Saturday, June 1st.  My parents came down early (on Thursday) so my mom could help me make a dress for Natalie.  Nate's parents came on Friday, along with Tyler and Aurelie.  We had a full house that night!  Melanie and Jade came too and stayed with Rob and Tina and they all came to the baptism on Saturday morning. 

Natalie was so excited she could hardly hold still.  She couldn't wait to be baptized.  I think it was exciting for Nate to baptize his little girl, too.

Sneaking in beforehand to check out the font filling up...

Natalie (and Nate) said the water was hot.  We had been preparing her for the water to maybe be a bit cold.  Nate said it ended up being almost too hot.  When I was helping Natalie get dressed, I asked her how it felt when she was baptized.  She said it felt like being in heaven.  I thought that was cute.  She said the same thing about receiving the Holy Ghost.

Like I said before, my mom helped me make a dress for Natalie.  I actually made the whole thing from start to finish, but I needed my mom to help me understand what the pattern wanted me to do.  She was also hugely helpful because she pressed things for me along the way.  (By the way, having someone else there to press everything for you is the way to sew!)  Natalie loved her dress.  She wore it after she got baptized and also the next day at church.

All of the family who came to the baptism.

Our family.  We were a bit pictured out... it was hot and very sunny--not ideal for picture taking.

After the baptism, we had all the family come to our house for a lunch.  While we would have loved to have more family with us, I had to say that the amount of people we had at our house was absolutely perfect--meaning, we all fit and we didn't have to kick anyone outside into the 106 degree heat to eat.

After lunch I got in a fight with some frosting.  Sadly, the frosting won.  I know better than to try to decorate anything with frosting made with real butter (as opposed to margarine or part shortening).  It makes the frosting not hold its shape.  But, I still made the frosting that way, because it tastes better, and I went completely crazy trying to frost this "cake" for Natalie.  I would swirl the frosting on, it would look great for about 30 seconds, then melt into goo.  So, we got the camera ready, I gave the worse looking cupcakes a touch-up and we took a picture really quick.  It didn't look like I wanted it to (a.k.a. perfect), but it was better than nothing.  And it tasted great.

Then we called Natalie in to look at it.  We had been keeping her away and she knew there was some surprise with the cupcakes.  When she came in to look, she didn't really respond.  Then I realized that she wasn't tall enough to see it from the top.  So I picked her up, and she yelled, "It's my dress!!"

Earlier in the day, we put the dress on her that my sisters and I were baptized in.  I don't think she was too fond of it, but she didn't want to hurt our feelings.  :)  She told Nate, "this is embarrassing."  And Kelton was heard saying "that's ugly!"  Styles have definitely changed in the last quarter of a century.  But it was fun to see her in the dress I wore to be baptized.

 We all had a great day!  Natalie even decided on her own to fast the next day--which was Fast Sunday.  But it only lasted until after church when she decided that she was a little too hungry to keep going.  We love this girl who tries to do what's right.