It's great to be eight

Eight-years old is a biggie as far as birthdays go...at least when you are a Mormon. Eight-years old means you get baptized as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Lilian's baptism came only 2.5 weeks after we dropped Rebekah off at the MTC. When filling out her mission papers back in January, Rebekah debated long and hard as to what day to put as her "date of availability." She very much wanted to be here for Lilian's baptism on June 6th but was worried about running into missionary backlog if she put her availability as the second week of June....many of the graduating high school seniors would be putting that week as their date as well. Would she get pushed back further into the summer at that point? So May 9th (her 19th birthday) was officially submitted as her date of availability and then we waited and wondered...there was always a chance she wouldn't go till early June anyway. The call came with an MTC entrance date of May 20th. Rebekah and Lilian both were a little sad. But so as to help Rebekah feel like she was involved at least a little bit, she helped Lilian pick out her baptism dress before she left.

Lilian's baptism date was only 3 days after her birthday. I couldn't have planned it better myself. How wonderful to have her baptism be a big part of her actual birthday celebrations. The baptism was in the afternoon so it was nice to have the morning be leisurely in getting Lilian all ready including Julianne's "dunk-worthy" hairstyle.

(Lilian and Camden shared their special baptism day.)

It's been a long time since we last had a baptism in our little family. And yet now that our caboose was finally getting baptized, it was in some ways a little sad along with the happy. It was most definitely an important day in her little life, and for me, a very real "she's not a baby anymore" moment. I'm glad that because she is a girl, I was the one to meet her back in the dressing room after her actual baptism to help her get dried off and dressed again. When Rebekah got baptized, I had been so mentally overwhelmed with getting everything ready for the big day...and then the actual moment happened so fast. It wasn't until she was standing in the dressing room afterwards, shivering and dripping water all over the floor with an enormous smile on her face that the emotion of it all truly hit me. I pulled her in for a big hug, wet clothes notwithstanding, and told her how much I loved her and how proud I was of her. It was a moment that stuck with me, so when Julianne got baptized, I made sure to do the same. I wasn't the first one to see Brandon, dripping wet and smiling in the dressing room. His father was there with him that time. And that was good and fine. But I missed that first wet hug. So to have that experience one last time with Lilian was priceless. Grinning and dripping and shivering....and so beautiful.

The little peg-doll was a gift from a neighbor....painted to look like Rebekah the day she left for the MTC, our own "mini Sister Croft." We decided to bring her along to any and all family activities while Rebekah was gone (Flat Stanley style).

After the baptism everyone came over to our house for a BBQ. The Croft side of the family took the opportunity to get a big family picture seeing as only our two missionaries Rebekah and Jordan were missing.

And a couple of pictures with my parents as well...