Eight Is Great!

Miriam turned eight this year.  Her birthday was a mixture of emotions for me.  I was super excited to have her get baptized, but I was also dealing with the trauma that I had a child old enough to be baptized.  Crazy!  My thoughts also caused me stress because I was thinking things like, "Is she ready to be responsible for her actions?  Have I taught her everything she needs to know before she makes such sacred covenants with her Heavenly Father?"  Being a parent is such a huge responsibility, but sometimes it's easy to forget that during the regular mundane days.  Having Miriam turn eight made me realize how quickly our lives pass without us even realizing it.  It gave me a renewed desire to make every day count and to take every opportunity to teach my girls the gospel.

We chose to take Miriam to Idaho to be baptized because we wanted to be surrounded by family.  It would be easier for the four of us to travel to the majority of family rather than have them come to us.  Miriam is the oldest grandchild on both sides of the family so her baptism was a pretty big deal.  Miriam was baptized on the 4th of July.  Since my dad's the bishop of his ward, he had permission to choose the date and time.  We felt so lucky to be able to create our own program and do things our own way.  While we were making the trip home to Yakima, Doug said, "Miriam's baptism was perfect, just perfect."  That made everything worth it.  It took a lot more work preparing for the baptism than I realized and to have Doug recognize the effort and to say it went well helped make everything worth it. 

My brother Daniel brought his beautiful girlfriend for a visit while we were there.  I'm excited to say that Daniel and Mallory became engaged during their visit, but that's another story.  While we were there, Mallory took some ADORABLE pictures of Miriam at the Rexburg temple and at the BYU-Idaho gardens.  It was really windy at the temple that day so those pictures didn't turn out so well, but there were some really cute ones at the gardens.  I was able to use those pictures to create invitations for Miriam's baptism.

  

My awesome mother-in-law and sisters-in-law helped me create some fun decorations for the Relief Society room where Miriam would be baptized.  My mom and dad were awesome at helping me set up for the occasion and to make all the food for the refreshments afterwards.  The baptism was pretty low-key but it took a lot of work because it was just Miriam getting baptized.  There were so many people that helped prepare for the day and then helped by participating in the program.

   

My sister-in-law Katy did me a huge favor by doing Miriam's hair.  It held up so great when Miriam went under water.  It looked so cute!

Miriam wanted to have her nails done with a french tip so I spent forever attempting to make them look good.  They didn't look perfect, but she was happy with them.

My mom bought Miriam this adorable towel to use and then keep as a keepsake.

I LOVE this picture of Doug and Miriam!

Look at how much family we had!

My sister-in-law made these adorable cupcakes as a surprise.  I wish we would have gotten a closer picture of them.  They were so cute!

This is my aunt.  She is recovering nicely after having a brain tumor removed from the base of her skull.  It was very scary during February not knowing what would be the outcome, but she's doing so much better now.  The story behind finding the brain tumor is amazing, but I won't share it right now.

After the baptism we had refreshments in my parents' backyard.  It was a fun way to end the 4th of July.

This is my grandma who is 93.  She used to be my back up babysitter when Miriam was a toddler.  She would also babysit both girls for me last year when I was living at home.  She's amazing!