Marigold's Baptism

Here is our darling Marigold all ready to be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! Can you believe that we've now had six of these happy days with our children? (Here are Abe, Seb, Ky, Daisy, and Junie! Oh, they are sweet and full of light on their baptism days!)

Abraham baptized Goldie, as he did Junie before her, which is such a happy thing. (And happily, though we are in a new stake and new stake center, they have the same picture of Jesus in the foyer! Does every chapel have that?) But my favorite moment of the day was the glimpse I caught of this little brother-sister practice session in the hall before the baptism started:

Marigold also decided that, like Junie, she would read the whole Book of Mormon by herself before she turned eight. And she did it, finishing in plenty of time by early May! She had already read the picture scripture story books about a thousand times, so she didn't seem to find it daunting at all. I loved walking into the girls' bedroom in the mornings and seeing them all curled up on their beds with their scriptures and marking pencils.

My mom, Sam's dad, my nephew and his wife, and my niece all got to come to celebrate Marigold's happy day.

Unfortunately we didn't get the traditional picture of just our family, so here we are with Sebastian's head stuck onto my nephew Mark's body, which is nearly as good. Gus, as you can only somewhat tell from this picture, was very wiggly and grumpish during the whole baptism. Perhaps he needed his spirit sent into some swine for awhile. At least Ziggy consented to take off his doggy hat for the occasion!

There don't actually seem to be very many of us in this picture, a phenomenon I have often noticed and wondered at.

Goldie and Abe

Miss Goldie in her beautiful baptism dress. I bought this dress for her a year ago, which was foolish of me I know, but it was just such a pretty dress and I knew it would be perfect for her—and I bought it a size too big just to make sure it would fit! Unfortunately, determined to catch up with her sisters, she grew more like two sizes this year! But the dress did still fit her. Just.

Everyone came over for a little lunch afterwards (planned by Goldie: egg salad on rolls, chicken wonton salad, watermelon and cantaloupe, and angel food cupcakes) and Goldie was just bursting with goodness and happiness. Every time I looked at her, her pure…shininess? almost took my breath away. It made me look forward to the future day when our covenants and repentance allow us to all be "purified, even as He is pure."