Audrey is Baptized

Our precious granddaughter Audrey was baptized on September 4th.  We decided to fly to be there and scheduled our flight for Friday afternoon, September 3rd.  There were weather problems at the Denver airport, so we spent the entire afternoon and evening at the St. George airport.  They loaded us on the plane at about 6pm, only to have us get back off an hour later.  We finally flew out at about 8:30 pm.  We got into our hotel at about midnight.   As we added up the hours, we realized we literally could have made the  10 -hour drive quicker!  The baptism was scheduled to be at 9 am on Saturday morning.   It was a short night!  It was about a fifteen minute drive from our motel.

 

When we drove up to the church, Brian was taking pictures of the family outside the church.

As we got out of the car, all of the grandchildren came running, crying, "Grandma!!!"  They all swarmed us and gave us hugs.  That may have been the highlight of the weekend for me!

Audrey looks very much like her mom did.  She always has.  She has a similar vibrant personality, too.  For her baptism, she wore the dress I made for Kristen when she was baptized.  Her older sister, Brielle wore Kristen's baby blessing dress when she was blessed, Audrey wore the baptism dress, so I guess Elisabeth will wear Kristen's beautiful wedding dress.  Three daughters= three dresses.

Grandpa gives Audrey a big hug.

The cousins sang "To Be His Child" for the baptismal service.  I took this picture when they were practicing before the meeting.  Brian played for them.

Audrey was baptized by her father, Jared.

The bishop took a picture of the whole group after the baptism.  Because of COVID, only family could come.  That included Jared's parents and two siblings and their families and Kristen's parents and Michelle and Brian and family.  It is always good to be with Jared's family.  They are such good people.

I love this picture of us with Audrey, or Audrey-liscious as Grandpa calls her.

I never heard the story of the doll, but Audrey really wanted Uncle Brian to take a picture of her with her doll.

Audrey with her Mackrory grandparents

A gift from Aunt Michelle

Kristen put together an amazing brunch for all of us at their house after the baptism.  Oh my, there was delicious food galore.  Did I not get pictures of the spread?  Here are some of kids eating.

I gave the baptism talk at the baptism.  I talked about the three "bears" of baptism:  our baptismal promises to:

1- Bear one another's burdens

2- Bear the name of Christ

3- Bear our testimonies of Christ always.

We then gave her the three bears as a gift to remind her of her covenants.

She didn't hate them!

For her birthday, we gave her this lego hair salon.  She spent the afternoon building it.  

In  the  late afternoon, we all went swimming in a friend of Kristen's community pool.  It was such a nice pool and we had so much fun!

The older cousins had so much fun together

Jared barbecued for us for dinner.  After dinner, the kids cleaned up the toys, then we had a very nice Come, Follow Me lesson.

We then had ice cream sundaes (to remind us what a treat Sundays are because we can take the sacrament and renew our baptismal covenants.)

These pictures are out of order, but before the swimming,  Jared helped the kids climb the climbing wall he made in their huge garage.

But honestly, who needs a special climbing wall?  Jake just scales the walls inside.  Isn't this a cute picture?

This is one of my favorite pictures of the whole weekend.  These kids worked so hard to get it just right.  Isn't it cute?

All tuckered out.

On the drive to Colorado, Michelle bit down on a Starburst and her tooth broke off.  She called Blake.  Because Monday was Labor Day- a holiday, he said he could fix it then if he could find an assistant willing to come in.  But that meant the Princes had to leave on Sunday to get back so they could go to Logan on Monday.  They attended a 9:00am church, then left.  We were sad not to have Sunday with them.  

We went to Mackrory's 10:30am church, then back to their house for the afternoon and evening.  

See- it spells Samuel!
That evening, Jared made us a delicious brisket dinner.  After dinner, he took some over to his parents' house.  Kristen made "brown pudding" a traditional Sunday evening treat in Jared's parental home.

The pudding cooks on the stove for an hour.  

It was delicious!

We didn't fly out until Monday afternoon, so we spent the morning back at the Mackrory's house.  We played games and chatted.  It was Labor Day, so the kids were out of school. 

A couple of weeks later, they had Audrey's friend birthday party.  It was a Bluey theme and this is the cake Kristen made for her.  I think this picture belongs in a magazine or, at least on Pinterest.

It was a wonderful family weekend.  Congratulations, Audrey!!!