a special day

Saturday, June 11, the boys were baptized.  It was a very meaningful day as it has been on our minds for a long time.

Every parent wants to pass down traditions and beliefs to their children. Every parent wants to give their child a foundation on which to build their own lives. Those traditions, beliefs and foundations are different for every parent and this is the one we chose.  I hope to raise children who know and love the Lord. I want my boys to be loving and have open hearts and open minds. I want them to pray and have faith in a higher power.  I want them to appreciate and respect choices of others.

To me, their baptisms symbolized the beginning of a faith journey.  It is our responsibility to instill the values and beliefs that we know so that our children have a solid base on which to build their own faiths.

On a lighter, MUCH lighter note.  This is Nolan's face the morning of the baptism:

We had been hoping and hoping for no forehead bruises (Nolan does the perfect run, trip, fall, whiplash, and head bang on the ground type of falls).  I thought we were in the clear. Oh well. His eye was more and more swollen as the day progressed and looked pretty bad by the Saturday, 6pm baptism time.  After the initial sadness of this happening on a day of lots of photos, I was able to let that part of it go completely.  I was, however, worried about him!  He always gets pretty big welts on his extremities from bug bites but when I saw the one by his eye before bed, I didn't think much of it.  The on-call nurse made me feel better and Nolan was not too bothered by it and sure enough, it was completely gone by Monday.

As for the baptism, we were lucky to have Matt (Brad's long time friend) and Jen fly in from the D.C. area to be Carter's Godparents. It was a very fun couple of days with them!

My very good friend, Stephanie, who blogs at This Casita and her husband, "the U" were Nolan's Godparents.  They have a sweet baby boy who was an angel the whole time!

We appreciate everyone who was able to come!  I'm so happy Brad's mom, Brad's dad and my mom all were able to fly in for it, too!

The boys were pretty much ready to go home when we took these pictures, if you can't tell!

Here are some pictures before the ceremony (our church makes changing into the white outfit part of the ceremony):

During the ceremony:



After the ceremony:



We especially appreciate that the Jones family could be there. Sullivan literally just came home from the hospital after round two of chemo. I was so surprised and happy to see him there!

After the ceremony, we had a sweet celebration at our home where everyone enjoyed Fuzzy's Tacos, tasty beverages and delicious desserts from Central Market.

yes...Brad was eating in both of those. he he. =)

It was truly a beautiful day and event and it made me so full of joy and love!

Of course, I had to take a few more pics of the boys once Nolan's eye was better: