When we were first married, I always would look to future milestones as something that would take so long to achieve. Such as being married for 15+ years, having children in school, having children who were self sufficient, having teenagers...being in my 30's! Well we have hit those milestones so fast and so many times that I can't even keep up, and here we are again at one of those BIG milestones. Malia turned 8 before we could even blink and with that came a really big decision for her to make. To be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. It wasn't even hard for her to make that decision, she has known for a long time what the answer would be. The hard part was the decision on when and where to be baptized. You see, with the temple dedication so close to her birthday, we thought it would be a good idea to baptize her on her birthday so she could be apart of the dedication. In the church, only baptized members are allowed to attend and even though should would be 8 by the dedication, we would have to hustle and get that ordinance done within 3 days of her birthday so she could go. The problem was it wasn't convenient for any extended family to make that journey at that time but we were prepared for a small, intimate gathering for this special occasion. That was until the news of the move came up. At that moment our plans were given a new possibility. Lindsay, who has a son 5 days younger than Malia, decided to have her son, Bradley, baptized in the Sweet Water River in Martin's Cove, Wyoming where my parents are serving a mission over Labor Day weekend. The same weekend we were heading out of Indy. So we now had the option of joining her and share a baptism with lots of family or doing it on her birthday so she could go to the temple dedication. It was a tough decision but Malia really wanted to be with her extended family on this special occasion so we decided to make the long trek out to Wyoming to see celebrate with everyone. I will post separately on the baptism but in the meantime we celebrated her birthday and prepare for her upcoming baptism with some fun shots at the temple the week before the open house. Bonnie Jean had come one more time to kill sometime while Andy was gone to hang out with us and take some cute shots of Malia in her baptism dress. They turned out really cute!
And since it was her 8th birthday, it was party time. She wanted to have makeup/dance party. We invited friends from church, school and the neighborhood. It was a fun/crazy time.
Kenz even helped with the makeup and nails.
Even our neighbor Tracey who is pregnant with her 7th joined in the fashion fun.
The girls had fun dancing!
Masie couldn't get enough.
Little Kay Kay joining in on the fun.
Aren't they beautiful!
Happy birthday sweetie!!! We sure are proud of all you have accomplished and the beautiful young lady you are becoming!!!
