Courtney's Baptism

"Jesus answered, Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." John 3:5

Yup.  It's a pretty big deal to get baptized!  That's why it was a really special time for our family a few weeks ago when our sweet little princess, Courtney, was baptized!  Courtney had been anxiously awaiting this opportunity for a very long time.  She was blessed with a testimony of the importance of baptism, and a great desire to return to her Heavenly Father, from a very young age.  She was SO excited for her special day!  Anyone who was there could feel the spirit of her happiness glowing all around her.  It was such a beautiful experience!

And, I must admit, I was also excited to have someone for whom I could buy a pretty little white baptism dress.  I even arranged to have her picture taken for the occasion by a friend of ours.  I love these photos, not just because they are lovely pictures, but because they reflect the beauty inside of our Coco as well.

She was a good sport about the whole photo shoot thing:

I had her wear rollers in her hair all day before the photo session.  We also had a few dentist appointments scheduled that day for Chase, so she was a good sport and wore a scarf over those rollers all day long wherever we went.  She was still as cute as ever, and gave us a chance to be missionaries and tell people that she was getting her picture taken for her baptism.  

And her curls turned out to look just amazing:

These curls don't come naturally like they do for her cousins, but they sure looked pretty that day!

Ready for the photo shoot!

Here are my favorites from the photo shoot with Danica:

Isn't she just lovely?  We also made a sweet little slideshow using these photos as an invitation to the baptismal service:

Customize your own free picture slideshow

And now we can finally get to the special day!  Another thing that made this event extra special was that Nana was able to come from Utah to be with us!  She arrived two days before the baptism on July 3rd, so she was also able to celebrate Independence Day with us at home.  So lucky for us!  But it was probably unlucky for her, because we spent most of the holiday preparing for the baptism luncheon.  We were serving salads and appetizers, so there was a LOT of chopping, chopping, chopping of vegetables that day.  But it was totally worth it for Coco!

Courtney's baptismal service was held on July 5, 2014 at 10am at the Westminster Stake Center.  There were four children being baptized that day.  They had some wonderful speakers to talk about baptism and the Holy Ghost.  And Chase played both the prelude music and the opening song, "When I am Baptized."  Avery played the closing song, "I Am A Child of God."  I was the chorister for the meeting.  Daddy and Courtney were dressed in their baptismal clothes, and Trey was trying to avoid Nana (he was afraid of her the whole weekend she was here--goofy kid!).  Oh, and Chase was also asked to hold the microphone for the Dads who administered the confirmation ordinance.  It was a lovely service and so much fun!  Here are a few pictures from the special day:

She is glowing like an angel in this photo!

We did a special "up-do" hairstyle for the baptism so that she could be dunked in the water and come up looking as fresh and lovely as possible.  I learned to do this from my friend Mandie, who is much better at these things than I am!

A beautifully happy face!

Showing the other side of the hair style.

Coco and Daddy getting ready!

We are extremely blessed as parents!  Extremely!

Oh, here they are all dressed and ready for the ordinance!

I LOVE these two!

I love these two, too!  So glad we got a smile out of Trey that morning.  He couldn't help but be happy with his favorite sister!

Waiting for the service to start.

Shhhhh...I sneaked a picture of Chase playing the prelude music.

The whole crew together!  We had Nana take some pictures of the family after the baptism, but the sound on my phone was turned off, so there was no "click" when she took the pictures.  As a result, we look more confused than happy in most of these pictures.  Haha!

"Is it taking the picture?"  Ha!  Oh well...I love this crew!

Coco and her big bros!

Coco and Nana!  Hooray!

After the baptism, we had lunch at our house for our family and some wonderful friends.  It was a big crowd with our family, Nana, the Burtons, the Gundersons, and the Reeders (both the older and younger!).  We had salads, rolls, chips & salsa, and cookies.  And Nate grilled some shrimp and pineapple.  So amazingly delicious and such great friends!

But the best part of the whole day was Courtney and her happy glow.  After the baptismal ordinance I was waiting for her in the dressing room to help her dry off and get dressed.  She was as precious as could be when she said, "This is the best day of my life!  I'm perfect!"  What a sweetheart!