Ian's Baptism

Our baby boy turned 8 in January! He had been sick for about a week before his birthday but he was finally feeling better before his day came.  I asked Ian if his teacher had students wear anything like a crown or badge for the birthday and he said no, so the night before I made him a badge necklace that said “It’s my birthday” and the number 8.  As requested I made his breakfast of choice, eggs and bacon, then sent them off to school. As they were getting on the bus, Scott was just getting home from the gym and he ran over to the bus and climbed on and yelled at the front of the bus, “Happy Birthday IAN!”  I bought some Oreo cookie packs from Sam’s club and he handed those out to his classmates for his birthday. I had an emotional morning thinking about my baby growing up and how time is going too fast. I felt bad he wouldn’t open anything on his actual birthday because we negotiated that he would get the Nintendo Switch as a Christmas\birthday present. I went to Target and bought him a game for the switch, then to the dollar store to buy a cute birthday balloon and some birthday decor, and Baskin Robbins for his Oreo ice cream cake. When he came home from school I played the song happy birthday by Stevie Wonder . When Scott got home we went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner, Ian calls it the peanut place. Then we came home opened the present from us, and a small package from Grandma and Grandpa, and a card from Oma and Opa and played the Switch, then had cake.

Ian is the coolest kid around. He always has a book in hand, loves to play video games with Rylan, shoots hoops outside, builds forts with Maddy every Sunday, and always gives me the best hugs. He makes us all laugh with his observations, he is mostly quiet about things but he is always paying attention to what is going on.  He is doing very well in school, he helps others in class, and has many friends. Anytime we go to a school event he gets bombarded with waves, high-fives, and hugs from his classmates. He has always kind of followed Madelyn is whatever she was doing, but now he is starting to be his own person and sometimes that irritates Madelyn and you can tell they are drifting apart a little. They still have their get-along moments but for the most part, these days its best to keep them separate. 

 His baptism was scheduled about a week later on the Saturday of Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. Grammy and Papa were able to come visit for it.  Because of the recent church ordination age changes, Rylan was able to do the baptism because he became a priest at the beginning of the year. They practiced off and on and before we left for the church they did one more practice.

  

The missionaries filled the font for us, and the Bishop met us about 30 minutes before to set up chairs and get the boys in their white jumpsuits.  We asked our friends Shannon to be the chorister and her son Jonah to play the piano. But Shannon was held up at an academic team competition that she coaches, so her husband Micah lead for her. People started slowly coming in when we started there were about 3 families there but by the time Ian was baptized about 3 other families had come.  Everything went well. Jody gave an excellent talk about baptism and got emotional when she said it was her last grandchild to be baptized. When it was time for the baptism, the boys walked down and the water came up to Ian’s chest. Rylan said the prayer correctly then when Ian went down his little foot popped up. They did it again and this time Rylan stepped on his feet to keep them from going up.  I gave my talk about the Holy Ghost, and I held it together the whole time until the end, I got teary eyed, but I was happy I didn’t full-on cry, I was worried about that. Scott gave him the gift of the Holy Ghost and a beautiful blessing.

When I tucked Ian in that night I asked him what his favorite and saddest part of the day were and he said he had a great day and everything made him happy.