So Much to Celebrate

Well, we’ve had a quite a week. On top of having family in town and celebrating my mom’s birthday, the kids also made the decision to be baptized and had their 5th grade promotion in a matter of a couple of days!

This week has been one full of excitement and wonderful memories have been made.

Baptism

On Sunday, the kids were baptized with other 5th and 6th graders at our church. We had a large class of students scheduled for baptism due to last year’s group not being able to be baptized due to Covid. My kids and seven others were baptized on Sunday.

Before our family came over, I had the kids take pic with the cake I got from a local bakery.

It was beautiful and tasted delicious! (Hadley joked that it looked like a gender reveal cake. 😆 )

Our friends and family enjoyed the cake before heading to the church.

We arrived about thirty minutes before their baptism.

We were so excited for them and their baptism class.

Each baptism candidate had a mentor that they met with over the past couple of months. Together, they read the book of Mark and completed a service project. My kids had terrific mentors and joined forces for their service project. Together, they baked desserts (brownies and cookies) and then delivered them to church members who are unable to attend church right now. It was so great seeing them work together and bring joy to others.

At the baptism, the mentors talked about their mentees and shared about the service projects. It’s always sweet, and a moment of pride, to hear great things about the kids. Believe me, they aren’t perfect, but it’s nice to know they can pull it together when it really matters!

The baptism was live streamed, so out of town family could watch as well.

Thanks to alphabetical order, Hadley was baptized first. Travis and I were able to join them on the stage as they each accepted Christ into their hearts.

I love this moment so much. Hayden waiting for his turn…while Hadley goes first.

The baptism was made even sweeter because they each had a great friend being baptized in their group.

Afterwards, we snapped a few family photos…

I hope they know how blessed they are to have such an amazing support system and family near and far who showed up for them on their big day.

Afterwards, family came back to our house to eat and enjoy one more cake! Since I knew we’d have plenty of people to eat all this cake, I went ahead and ordered them an ice cream cookie cake from Baskin Robbins to celebrate their upcoming 5th grade promotion.

It was so good!

I also had these fun cups on hand with the kids’ first day of kindergarten photo.

5th grade promotion:

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the kids’ 5th grade promotion was virtual, so some families decided to get together to celebrate our grads afterwards. We are very blessed with a great group of families who have pretty much been together since kindergarten. We were missing a few families, but we had a wonderful afternoon.

Since I had hosted out of town family and then family after the baptism, I kept up my “hostess with the mostest” title and had the kids’ friends and families over on Tuesday afternoon after the promotion ceremonies.

We decided to grill out, and we all divvied up food, drinks, desserts, and decorations to make the afternoon a success.

One mom brought these fun balloons!

…that we then, of course, made our kids hold for a photo!

These sweet ladies have so much fun together.

These boys are tons of fun too!

I probably would have scheduled the lawn letters anyway, but I definitely went ahead with it knowing all the kids would enjoy them, and they provide a great photo op, obviously!

These years have been the best because of these ladies. I feel so blessed to do life with them!

After we grilled out, the kids ran around, ate delicious cupcakes, and then went up to school to silly string their younger siblings as they left the building on the last day of school. Many of us sat around and chatted late into the evening, and it was certainly a day that I will never forget.

Seeing the kids make one of the most important decisions of their lives and celebrate two major milestones in a matter of days makes me so proud, thankful, and…emotionally exhausted! We’ve had such a wonderful and blessed week.

See you back here tomorrow for Friday Favorites. My favorites from this week are pretty easy to share!