Milestone Month

Cakes turned 8 this month. I took her to the new American Girl Place in DC on her birthday, with my mother-in-law. She picked a few things for her doll that she's had on her wish list for quite a while. We ate lunch and did some shopping, She was thrilled to buy a few things at Justice (it's a very trendy store for girls, but it also has LOTS of inappropriate clothing, so there isn't usually much there I'm willing to allow). We did have a minute of panic when we got into the car to head home. She opened one of her boxes from AGP and realized we picked up the wrong box. She immediately yelled, "Mommy, stop!" She was freaked out and on the verge of tears for the couple minutes it took us to walk back into the store and exchange the wrong thing for the right thing. Good thing she checked! She had a great day and was really happy to be so spoiled.




The birthday girl! We looked around the Disney store for a bit and she actually allowed me to take a picture.

 We spent the night in Richmond, had dinner at Cracker Barrel and had some birthday cake with the grandparents. When we got in the car the next morning I realized she's 8 - she doesn't have to ride in a booster seat anymore! So we pitched that in the trunk and she was thrilled to sit in a regular seat and let her feet touch the floor. Good riddance!

And then today was the BIG day. She was baptized! Everything went just fine this morning. She wasn't acting scared or nervous and Scott was too busy focusing on our toilet that isn't working right to be scared or nervous himself. I surprised her with a new outfit and she was perfectly happy to get ready and hang around the house until it was time to go to church. Once we were at church the nerves started getting to her. She didn't really want to take a family picture before and when I went to help her change she started crying, saying she was scared, didn't want to do it, didn't want people watching her. I said a prayer with her then handed her off to Scott who gave her a little pep talk and eventually convinced her to join everyone.




Not a bad picture given the circumstances. No one was scowling.


Her one particular program request was to sing "If I Listen with My Heart" which is the new Primary song this year. That took some figuring, since not everyone knows the song and I couldn't find a pianist. I asked my family to practice ahead of time, there were several other Primary people there, and Scott burned the accompaniment to a CD for me so everything worked out. My sister Melissa gave a great talk that was just what Cakes needed to hear.

I don't know about other fonts, but ours has Plexiglas in front of it and today it was all foggy for some unknown reason. I'd never seen that happen before, and I've seen lots of baptisms in that font. Our Bishop said later that he thinks the glass fogged up just for Cakes so she wouldn't be more scared and nervous by all the people since she couldn't really see anyone. It was perfect.

Scott confirmed her with my dad, brother, Bishop, Br Stubbs and her Primary teacher, Br Langdon. He had a sweet gift and card for her too. He's great.

My friend Kris took some family pictures for us outside the church with all the family members that came out for the day. She doesn't know yet how significant those pictures are, but that's a story for another day.

With the grandparents

All the relatives. Anybody notice anything different...

Everyone came back to our house for lunch. Mamie gave Cakes some cool books for her birthday and Papop brought us some pictures he took of our beach trip earlier this month. Scott and I had bought Cakes a new scripture case and a mini-hymnal when we went to the temple earlier this summer so I finally gave those to Cakes too. She's official!

POST EDIT: That unfamiliar face in the family picture is Melissa's HUSBAND, William. They eloped the night before the baptism and announced it here at my house. I had great fun at church the next day telling everyone who'd been at the baptism that my sister, the one who spoke, had eloped the night before.