Sadie's Special Day

The time Sadie was going to get her braces off was mighty close to the time she was going to be baptized.  Her original date for baptism was December 1st so I thought there would be time, but then we decided to have her baptism in November instead, so it was cutting it really close!  I wasn't sure it was going to happen.  The weather was quickly turning too cold for pictures outside.  And the time to have invitations printed and mailed was getting very close.  We took pictures of the kids this day in September and I took a few of her in her dress just in case we never had any other nice days.  I loved this picture, even if she still has a braces smile.

 In the end, she had her braces removed 11 days before her baptism.  My plan was to head out to take pictures THAT NIGHT.  Because the next day was Halloween.  BUT she ended up sick!!  I still took her to the orthodontist to get her braces off because I didn't want to postpone that any longer.  But she was not well enough to go outside in 45 degrees to take pictures.  So we went out 9 days before her baptism.  It was chilly, but she did great!!  I was very pleased with what we got.

Just to give you an idea of how it went....

While we were there, we went to the Visitor's Center and warmed up and hung out a bit.

I put the invitations together really quickly, sent it to be printed here locally, and picked them up the next day.  They turned out cute!  Yes, I realize I got the year wrong.  I don't know why my mind was on 2019, but it was.  Oh well!

The reason we decided to do it in November was because Ryan's parents said they would stay long enough to come if we did.  Otherwise they would be in Arizona and his dad would not be able to come back here because of his blood clot issue he can't travel very often.  My mom was fine with either date, but she needed enough notice to be able to schedule work around it.  As it turned out, both my mom and Carol, and Ryan's parents were able to come.  Because Sadie's birthday was on a Saturday, we decided to go ahead and do it on her birthday! 

Doing a "private" baptism instead of the scheduled Stake Baptism is kind of a pain.  We had to come up with the whole program and buy programs to make printed copies.  We had to come up with a pianist for prelude, etc.  We were responsible for filling up the font, which we didn't end up doing since there were other baptisms before us.  We had to ask one of the bishopric members to come.  Other than the fact that we had to do some work for it, everyone we talked to from the primary or the Stake were not very helpful at all!  They were basically like, good luck- not our problem.  Lol.  Whatever, it was fine.  I was happy to have it be just her and however we wanted it.  And honestly, it was perfect and special and tender and awesome.

Kylee and Sadie sang a musical number "Peace in Christ" and it was just beautiful and perfect and I loved it!!  If you don't know it, my favorite lines are "He gives us hope when hope is gone, he gives us strength when we can't go one, he gives us shelter in the storms of life.  When there's no peace on Earth, there is peace in Christ."  So great! I didn't get a video of the actual number but I did of their practice.  Here's a picture of their practice.  Probably anyone reading this blog was there to hear it in person or at least saw it on Facebook.

Other than the musical number, it was special for some other reasons.  We had all our family doing the talks and the prayers.  Grandpa Ken gave the opening prayer, which isn't something he does in public and it was really neat to hear him pray.  My mom was able to give the closing prayer also, which was fun.  Cheryl gave a great talk.  And Carol shared her testimony as well.

 Kennedy and Sadie share a birthday!  It was Kennedy's request to come to Sadie's baptism even on her own birthday.  Sadie has always loved Kennedy!

Other than all that, it was so fun having so many people there to support Sadie and show their love.  My brother and his family made the trip up.  And Sadie invited a handful of friends and lots of them came.  It's safe to say she felt very special and loved.

Since it was also her birthday, she got to open a LOT of presents :)

And of course we had a cake.

We had some family and friends over for lunch afterwards and we were able to visit with them.
Later that night, Kylee and Sadie and Grandma Stokes and I went to get pedicures at the mall.  Sadie was a bit small for the chair, ha ha.  But we had fun.

It really was a GREAT day!