Baptism, Beads, and Best Buds!

The day has come and gone. Our sweet B was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She was glowing and SO excited to be baptized! It's all she would talk about. She has a testimony that Jesus Christ is her Savior, and she wants to follow Him. I am so proud of her!

 

Her father baptized her and confirmed her a member of the Church. I asked her, after she came out of the water, how she felt inside. She told me, with a huge grin on her face, that she felt happier than she did on her birthday. Wow. It amazes me every day how we are so blessed to make covenants with our Father in Heaven - even though we are imperfect, He is willing to covenant with us and make us special promises. We are so loved!

 

B was also blessed to have 2 of her cousins drive a LONG way to be here to celebrate with her. She and her cousin, "L" got along like peas and carrots! And "S", of course, hung out with TJ the entire time. Though, she did make my day more than once by telling me I'm her favorite Auntie. Tee hee hee. She knows how to make me smile :) She made a point of reminding me often that we need to move closer to her. I don't disagree with her. I sure miss seeing my nieces and nephews grow up. Maybe someday...

 

We also had Aunt J and my mother and father in law join us to celebrate. Grandpa gave the talk on baptism, and Grandma have a talk on receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was wonderful. In fact, the entire weekend with them was wonderful!.

 

Our Bishop was also there to conduct the meeting and share some thoughts. Besides being a close family friend, he is a wonderful and inspired bishop. We felt blessed to have him there.

 

I can't express how happy I felt on this special day. I know it may be difficult for those not of my faith to comprehend, but for me - this represented such a huge step for my daughter, who I love dearly. She is so smart and so sweet. She is growing into such a lovely young woman.

I think, for her, one of the best surprises of the day came when our babysitter and friend, Cassie, delivered this 'little' friend for miss B.

I think the only thing bigger than that teddy was her smile! LOL!

As is tradition, we took B out for a fancy dinner at a restaurant of her choice. She chose East Side Marios because of the fun dessert you get for free :) She loved it. Actually, we all did!

 

The other super fun part of this weekend was when my mother in law got me hooked on a new hobby! Beaded watches! Have you seen these? Apparently they are all the rage in the States right now. So, we headed to Dollarama to buy some $1 bracelets and necklaces. Then we took them apart until we had piles of these chunky, yummy beads:

 Then, we threaded them, and some clasps, through some stretchy string, tied it off, and attached them to a watch face. Voila! Beaded watches!

Best part? You can make dozens of different bands to match whatever you are wearing. You can attach and detach the bands by undoing the clasps. We made a few for me to use while Aunt J and Grandma were here.

 

I'm in LOVE LOVE LOVE with these!! I wore the purple band for the baptism, the blue band to church, and today I'm wearing my latest creation - the pink! LOVE IT! I mean, you can buy beads at Michaels, Wal-Mart - wherever. It just depends on how much you want to spend on beads. All of those above were from our local Dollar store, so SCORE! I can't wait to make a red one, a white one, a green one....you get the idea! I also made a watch for TJ, and some bracelets for the younger girls to wear.

The weekend was over too soon, though, as usually happens. The group had to leave after sacrament meeting on Sunday, so we said our goodbyes until probably July. I hate seeing them go. I miss my family. But, life goes on and you have to keep plugging along. It is weekends like this, though, that keep that smile on my face and have me looking forward to our next reunion!