Alexis's Baptism Day

Saturday, June 27th, was Alexis's Baptism day. This was such a special day for Alexis and our family. She has been preparing for her Baptism day for a long time, and we could hardly believe the day had finally arrived. All year long Alexis has faithfully attended each of her friend's baptisms and has anxiously awaited her turn. Here she is before with Brandon in front of the font. Brandon was so excited to be able to baptize and confirm Alexis. I was so surprised that he didn't act nervous at all. He did a beautiful job.Here is our family before the Baptism. It was hard to get Levi to take any pictures, so I am glad we got him to be in this one =)Alexis is such a good example to Tori. I know that Tori looks up to Alexis so much, and is excited for her own Baptism in a few years.

We felt so blessed to have so many family and friends there to share and participate in the special day with us. My mom was the pianist, and Brandon's dad and my dad were the witnesses when she was baptised.Cindy and AJ, and David, Kristalyn and the boys traveled all the way from Utah, and we are so grateful to them for that. Cindy gave a beautiful talk on The Holy Ghost, and Kristalyn helped lead the music.Katie sang the song, "Baptism" with Alexis and Tori. They practiced really hard, and they looked so sweet standing up there together. It was more like a solo for Katie, since the girls got pretty nervous, and pretty much lip synced =) But she did great and sounded beautiful.
Uncle Michael said the closing prayer. I know he was nervous, but it meant a lot to Alexis to have him say it.
A lot of Alexis's friends came, and I wish a would have gotten pictures with everyone, but I did get a few. Here is Alexis with her friend Kityra and then Arianna. Kityra said the opening prayer.

Alexis's primary teacher from last year, Sister Wild, gave the talk on Baptism. Alexis loved having her as a teacher, and she has been to all of the Baptisms this year, even though she isn't their teacher any more. It was really special for her to be able to speak. I wish I had gotten a picture of her with Alexis!

Here are Alexis and Brandon standing in front of a little table I set up outside of the baptism room. My good friend Catherine was so sweet to take some pictures of Alexis in her Baptism dress, and then design cute ways to use them.
Here are some close ups of the ones we displayed. There were so many that we loved, but these were our favorites
Afterwards we had our family over to our house for a barbecue. It was really fun to be able to hang out for a while longer. Here is Alexis opening a few presents from us. A new CTR ring, and her own set of scriptures.

They next day, Alexis said to me, "I wish every day could be my baptism day!" =) What a special day that we will cherish forever.

She's Eight!

Our sweet Alexis turned 8 years old today. We had a great day celebrating. Here is the traditional picture at the birthday table first thing in the morningWe didn't do a friend party this year, so I told Alexis she could plan what we did for the day. She decided she wanted to go to "The House of Bounce". Kristalyn and David introduced us to this place before they moved, and the kids love it! They have all sorts of big bouncy castles to bounce in. Here are Alexis and Tori getting ready to go down a slide backwardsHere is the end result. I love this picture =)One of the bouncy things is a big maze. We spent quite a bit of time in that one. It was exhausting! Here is Levi peaking through at one point.Brandon has been so busy with work this past week due to the recent hail storms. We have hardly seen him, so he decided to take the day off for Alexis's Birthday, which she was thrilled about. On the way out we gave in and let the kids ride on the little rides that they have there.Later that day Brandon took Alexis on a special daddy daughter birthday date. She got to pick whatever restaurant she wanted to go to and she picked, Joe's Crab Shack. Brandon and her both love crab, so this was the perfect choice. He forgot to bring the camera, and I am so sad, because it sounds like they had such a fun time! The whole restaurant sang her happy birthday, and they gave her a lei and hula skirt. They wanted her to get up and do the hula dance while they sang to her, but she opted out of that =). She came home so stuffed, that she could only eat one bite of her birthday cake! When they got home our families came over for cake, ice cream, and most importantly, presents! Here she is blowing out her candles. She was determined to blow them all out with one blow, to make sure her wish would come true =)It was so much fun watching her open up all of her presents. She smiled so big the whole time and was so grateful for everything she got. A few months ago she saw some mood lipstick that she had to have. I kept it in the back of my mind and decided to get some for her birthday.We had to try it out to see if it really worked! Here is Brandon putting it on. There weren't any kind of instructions telling us what each of the colors meant, but it seemed to get darker as time went on, so we think that means that she is really happy =)If you look closely at the box that Alexis is holding you will see that it has a picture of her on it. Nana and Papa had that jewelry box made for her. Inside was a beautiful bracelet. Both the jewelry box and the bracelet were engraved with her name. What treasures!They also got her a fun Barbie that some with fake nails for Alexis to wear =)Grandma, Grandpa, Katie and Michael got her a new swimming suit, sun glasses, nail polish, a cute bracelet and a slip and slide! We will be getting a lot of use out of those things this summer. The kids are already planning on playing the slip and slide tomorrow. Hopefully it won't rain!Here is Alexis with all of her "Puffles" This is what she wanted from us the most. She loves playing Club Penguin, and on the game you can buy little pets called Puffles. Well they just came out with stuffed animal versions of them, and apparently they are quite the hot item. They were sold out in all of the stores, and I finally found a set of them to order online. When they came in the mail, I thought they looked like funny weird little things, but Alexis couldn't have been happier, as you can see in the picture =) We had such a fun time today celebrating Alexis's birthday. I can't believe she is 8 years old! Alexis is so excited to be getting baptised in a few weeks. What a special day that will be. We love you Alexis! Thank you for bringing such joy to our family =)

Brandon's Birthday

Yesterday was Brandon's Birthday. It's the beginning of his last year in his 20s! I am really disappointed with the pictures that I took. I totally saw the glare of the sun and the blinds when I took the pictures, but me not knowing anything really about photography thought I could somehow edit them to make that go away. Oh well! Better to at least have some pictures then none! Here is Brandon with the kids bright and early in the morning. I planned on making him breakfast in bed, but he got up before I could! I don't think you are ever to be excited that it's your Birthday =)
Here are some pictures of him reading his cards, and opening presentsA few months ago, Brandon got out his old original Nintendo from when he was a kid. He started collecting some of the games, and I found two on EBay that are hard to come by. Here he is opening those =)Last father's day, Brandon's sister Summer gave us a picture that someone drew of Brandon's grandpa Bronson. Brandon's grandpa passed away last year, and Brandon has always loved this picture of him. We never had gotten it framed, because it had to be custom framed, and that's a little pricey, so I surprised him and got it done for his birthday.

Here is his chocolate butterfinger cake. If you look closely you can see the little guitars all over it. We found those at the dollar store. I thought they were so cute!

Last night, My sister Katie babysat the kids so Brandon and I could go out to dinner. We went to Buffalo Wild Wings, which has become a recent favorite of ours. It was a great day. Happy Birthday honey!