The Big day finally arrived….Leah's Baptism

Leah was so incredibly excited for her baptism and was literally counting down the days. Infact, the day before her baptism she declared it her "Baptism Eve" thus making her baptism a Holiday. I wonder if we could make it National even. Haha…She would probably like that.

I think I could have a bunch of kids just to get to enjoy their baptism day because it's such a special day! But since I'm not really going to have a bunch more kids, we'll just have to settle for trying to really enjoy the four baptism days we have.

We started the day out with the ward Easter party at the park. It was super fun, but my phone was being weird and not taking pictures, so I'll have to get some off of Paul's phone later. We went to lunch at Chili's as a family with Paul's parents and then came home and got ready. My mom and stepdad were here and my Aunt and Uncle happened to be in San Diego for a work thing, so they drove up for the day too. Ty and Heather were able to come with three of their kids, plus Jeanette and Brent and their three boys came fom Bellflower, so we just had a really great mini "family reunion".  

The baptism was perfect and everything went really smoothly. The spirit was so strong and Leah was just beaming. I got to talk for a couple of minutes about how much we love Leah and how blessed we are to have her in our family. I shared the story of her sticking up for her brother when a little boy at school was making fun of him. She really is a strong little girl. She's never afraid to stand up for what is right or to share her beliefs and things that are dear to her heart. I'm really so proud of her for the beautiful young lady she is growing up to be.

Plus, one of Leah's most favorite parts of the day was that her best friend Gracie was able to come with her parents. So that combined with the many many wonderful ward friends that showed up, we just really had a great day and feel so blessed!

Ashlyn played "A Child's prayer" on the flute and did such a wonderful job. She originally thought we were going to be in the Primary room the whole time, so when she found out it was in the Chapel, she was pretty nervous. But she did it and she did it beautifully. And I think Leah thought it was pretty neat to have her sister do a musical number just for her.

Afterward, we were going to meet at the park with all our family that was in town, but it was getting chilly and dark fast, so we moved it to our house. It worked out better than I expected and we were able to hang out and chat until almost 10. The kids were sure hard to get up for church the next morning, but it was worth it. It couldn't have been a more perfect day!

And this kind of sums up Leah's feelings towards it. 

We love you little Leah!