Since the flu season has been so bad this year here in Utah, we held off on giving Kaleb his baby blessing until the weather started warming up... which thankfully it has! We blessed Kalebe this last Sunday, on March 3rd at our ward, the Spanish Peak Ward in the Spanish Fork Utah Stake. It was very nice. Our friends and family who came to the blessing were as follows: Rob and Marlies Mock, Heidi, Maren, and Hazel Christensen, Lance, Janelle, Caitlyn, Julia, and Elena Mock, Syd and Carolyn Pratt, Alberto, Melissa, Sarah, Nathan, and Gabby Trevino. Plus our family of course. My aunt and uncle had been planning on attending but my uncle had hip replacement surgery less than a week before so of course he wasn't ready to be up and moving around that much. And my cousin and his daughter drove all the way out from Orem but they ended up in the wrong chapel and missed it, which is sad. That is easy to do here in Utah. Somebody in their testimony that Sunday mentioned she drives past 3 chapels before she gets to ours... and she only lives 5 minutes away!
Anyway, the blessing was very special. Kaleb was very quiet and peaceful and Derek said after he had finished saying the blessing, Kaleb just smiled and smiled. He certainly does smile a lot. Today I was reading to him out of the Book of Mormon and the second I started reading he started smiling and smiling - even though I was reading about the terrible destruction of the Lamanite people and their dead bodies piled in heaps throughout the land. Anyway.
Derek held Kaleb during Sunday School, which we actually never made it into. We were saying our goodbyes to our friends who needed to go home and it just kind of took awhile. I took all the little kids to primary - Abigail and Hazel went to Sunbeams and Joshua, Maren, and Caitlyn went to CTR5. Julia snuck in with Caitlyn after awhile, though Lance and Janelle took the two littler girls home with them after Primary. Marlies, Heidi, and I went to Relief Society. It is my month to conduct so my mother and sister-in-law held Kaleb while I sat up front.
After church we had a little dinner at our house. My group for the dinner kept getting smaller and smaller so I kept changing the menu but in the end we had "creamy black bean salsa chicken" which is like a Mexican style soup or stew with shredded chicken, tortilla chips to eat it with, grapes and orange slices, a large green salad, limeade to drink (YUM) and oatmeal chocolate chip raisin cookies for dessert - with milk of course. The kids, except Lukas who was tired and preferred the adult company, played downstairs with the dress up clothes. It's a good think after all that Abigail has so many princess dresses! Maybe someday we'll need to get some more pirate gear. :) The children were so happy down there that the adults - and Lukas - ate dinner upstairs without them and when we were done we let them come eat. It was a lot of fun. And even Uncle Barret (Heidi's husband) was able to join in the fun after a while. He is a Bishop in Provo and had a lot of work to do in his ward that Sunday, but thankfully it didn't take him all night.
It was so fun to see everyone and it is always nice to have people come to a baby blessing. But now that it's over I can't help but think about what I am supposed to be doing now. Does it always seem to you like there is always something on the horizon to plan for? When I think about it, there is actually a ton to do. And the more I think about it the more overwhelming it gets so I'm just going to stop thinking about it for awhile and enjoy a little artificial break.
Enjoy the photos.
Lukas wore this baby blessing outfit too. But Joshua only wore a little white onesie and Abigail had a different little girl white outfit. I didn't have money to buy the first two special blessing outfits - and technically my mother bought this one for Lukas. During church little Hazel asked Heidi whether Kaleb was a boy or a girl and Abigail thought it was really funny when she found out Kaleb was going to wear a dress to church. But I like this kind of baby blessing outfits best.
Right after church, instead of going downstairs with the wild and crazy kids, Lukas grabbed his "Decke" and crawled up into Grampy's lap.
The meal.
I look like a car ran over my face, but oh well. This is officially our new family picture until I think of a reason to take another one.
Grammy and Kaleb. Kaleb felt much better after I changed him out of his "dress."
The princesses and pirate. I suppose one is technically a fairy. the girls did a really good job of negotiating who got to wear which dress. This is often a problem but I am proud of them for being able to work it all out. Abigail still has 3 more dresses not shown here! so spoiled :) - and now she says she needs a "belle" dress. That's probably not going to happen.
Kids dinner time - Lukas still wasn't done and Heidi is helping keep the peace. Or maybe just making sure they eat something besides grapes!
Grampy and Kaleb.
And of course we all went to the Provo Bakery afterwards for the traditional donut!
