We blessed our sweet baby girl on July 6th. She has been our oldest baby, 7 weeks old. In the past our babies have been between 1-2 1/2 weeks old. As you can probably imagine, it's been pretty overwhelming every time and I'm beyond exhausted when the day ends. We usually try to bless the baby so soon after because we have family in town. This time my mom told me to enjoy this time and to not worry about trying to bless the baby so soon. I was glad for her advice but sad she wasn't here for the blessing. But it was a great gift she gave! Thank you Mom!
Let me tell you about the day. We had a church at 9 am so we were up at 7 am (we usually don't get up until 7:30 am.) Dan's aunt, Victoria, was visiting and helped with getting the kids ready. As I was getting Faith ready for church, she gave me her first smile! She looked me in my eyes and gave me the greatest gift she could have given me! As you can imagine it started the day off with some extra sunshine!
We arrived at church early to save seats and so the Bishop could approve all those for the circle. The circle compromised of, Ben and Vaughn (Dan's brothers), Mark McKeon and Todd Estes (our home teachers), Rick Baker, Bob Dixon, Dan Gump (all family friends) and The Bishop (who I consider to be like family.) Faith was given a name, Faith McKenzie Clayton and a blessing. She was awake for the blessing. Some highlights from the blessing are:
- Blessed to watched over by a loving Heavenly Father her whole life
- When life is difficult or prosperous she will recognize and remember her Heavenly Father
- She will never need to be compelled to be humble
- She will have a strong testimony during her life and live righteously
-She will be an example to those around her so much that those around her will come to know the Savior just through knowing her
-She will be blessed to kneel at the alter of the temple and be sealed to a righteous young man. And as children come she will know celestial happiness here on Earth.
- She was blessed to know she is loved and will be close to the Savior.
It was a wonderful blessing and I am so grateful for her. It made me think back to a blessing I received the night before I had her in which I was told Heavenly Father was pleased with me for providing a loving home and bodies for His special spirits. It made me so thankful that I've been given the chance to be a mother to these 4 children.
I bore my testimony during Sacrament meeting. I mentioned how I've seen The Lord's hand in my life and know He lives and is real. I've seen him in my life from the beginning. As I pondered my life up to this point I saw how it was all perfectly orchestrated by His hand as I followed Him and chose to be obedient. I know it is by His hand I was blessed to have these 4 children and I know we are not done yet. And what's amazing is that when I was pregnant with Hannah I received a blessing in which I was told that someday it would be made clear to me why things happened the way they did and that was fulfilled that weekend we blessed Faith. I saw that I was blessed with stuttering so I could graduate early from High school, leading to me meeting my husband when I was very young and everything leading to us being sealed in the temple, to me having the desire and longing to have children a week after we were married. It took time to convince Dan that we needed to start right away. At the time I didn't understand how important it was for us to start so early so we could have the children that needed to come to us. And the way I found out how difficult it should be for us to have children ( my egg count is at the level of someone who receives egg donations) through the prompting to donate eggs myself. We've only been able to have children because we started when I was so young. At the time of the blessing while I was pregnant with her I was questioning not finishing my Bachelors was the right thing and the fact there was so many complications if we had jumped in too soon. He IS real, I can not deny it. Our Savior lives and he loves us. His hand is in our lives.
Dan's two brothers and their families stayed for all 3 hours. It was fun getting to spend that time with them. We then came back our house to have a lunch of pulled pork, jello, chips, corn, potato and pasta salad, and a fruit salad. Becca and Shalyse helped so much by making and bringing most of it. Becca helped to made decorations for the open house we had in the evening. They helped SO much to make it as less stressful as possible which I am so thankful for!
After the lunch everyone went home and we got ready for the open house. We invited pretty much the whole ward and friends who we knew from other wards. It was so fun to see everyone and we had a great turn out. It was our first time having an open house with a blessing but I felt like it would be the easiest way to include all of our friends. We did a dessert potluck so all we had to do was provide the locations, seats, drinks and paper products. Everyone could come and go as they pleased. I really enjoyed getting to chat with everyone. After being released and having a new baby I hadn't had a chance to see several of them for a while. It was a great day. We ended the day with getting ready for Hannah's first day of school. That I'll make into another post! Here are pictures from the blessing day:
Let me tell you about the day. We had a church at 9 am so we were up at 7 am (we usually don't get up until 7:30 am.) Dan's aunt, Victoria, was visiting and helped with getting the kids ready. As I was getting Faith ready for church, she gave me her first smile! She looked me in my eyes and gave me the greatest gift she could have given me! As you can imagine it started the day off with some extra sunshine!
We arrived at church early to save seats and so the Bishop could approve all those for the circle. The circle compromised of, Ben and Vaughn (Dan's brothers), Mark McKeon and Todd Estes (our home teachers), Rick Baker, Bob Dixon, Dan Gump (all family friends) and The Bishop (who I consider to be like family.) Faith was given a name, Faith McKenzie Clayton and a blessing. She was awake for the blessing. Some highlights from the blessing are:
- Blessed to watched over by a loving Heavenly Father her whole life
- When life is difficult or prosperous she will recognize and remember her Heavenly Father
- She will never need to be compelled to be humble
- She will have a strong testimony during her life and live righteously
-She will be an example to those around her so much that those around her will come to know the Savior just through knowing her
-She will be blessed to kneel at the alter of the temple and be sealed to a righteous young man. And as children come she will know celestial happiness here on Earth.
- She was blessed to know she is loved and will be close to the Savior.
It was a wonderful blessing and I am so grateful for her. It made me think back to a blessing I received the night before I had her in which I was told Heavenly Father was pleased with me for providing a loving home and bodies for His special spirits. It made me so thankful that I've been given the chance to be a mother to these 4 children.
I bore my testimony during Sacrament meeting. I mentioned how I've seen The Lord's hand in my life and know He lives and is real. I've seen him in my life from the beginning. As I pondered my life up to this point I saw how it was all perfectly orchestrated by His hand as I followed Him and chose to be obedient. I know it is by His hand I was blessed to have these 4 children and I know we are not done yet. And what's amazing is that when I was pregnant with Hannah I received a blessing in which I was told that someday it would be made clear to me why things happened the way they did and that was fulfilled that weekend we blessed Faith. I saw that I was blessed with stuttering so I could graduate early from High school, leading to me meeting my husband when I was very young and everything leading to us being sealed in the temple, to me having the desire and longing to have children a week after we were married. It took time to convince Dan that we needed to start right away. At the time I didn't understand how important it was for us to start so early so we could have the children that needed to come to us. And the way I found out how difficult it should be for us to have children ( my egg count is at the level of someone who receives egg donations) through the prompting to donate eggs myself. We've only been able to have children because we started when I was so young. At the time of the blessing while I was pregnant with her I was questioning not finishing my Bachelors was the right thing and the fact there was so many complications if we had jumped in too soon. He IS real, I can not deny it. Our Savior lives and he loves us. His hand is in our lives.
Dan's two brothers and their families stayed for all 3 hours. It was fun getting to spend that time with them. We then came back our house to have a lunch of pulled pork, jello, chips, corn, potato and pasta salad, and a fruit salad. Becca and Shalyse helped so much by making and bringing most of it. Becca helped to made decorations for the open house we had in the evening. They helped SO much to make it as less stressful as possible which I am so thankful for!
After the lunch everyone went home and we got ready for the open house. We invited pretty much the whole ward and friends who we knew from other wards. It was so fun to see everyone and we had a great turn out. It was our first time having an open house with a blessing but I felt like it would be the easiest way to include all of our friends. We did a dessert potluck so all we had to do was provide the locations, seats, drinks and paper products. Everyone could come and go as they pleased. I really enjoyed getting to chat with everyone. After being released and having a new baby I hadn't had a chance to see several of them for a while. It was a great day. We ended the day with getting ready for Hannah's first day of school. That I'll make into another post! Here are pictures from the blessing day:
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| We tried getting pictures of all the cousins.........I had to add all of them because it was pretty much a lost cause and it makes me chuckle just going through them! |
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| This is the dress she was blessed in as well as Hannah and Bella. The dress in the pictures above is the one I bought in case I couldn't fix this dress (it was torn by a 3 year old trying wear it as a dress up ) and wanted to use it for after the blessing. |
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| Dan called the flower a 'spiritual satellite" it was so big on her! |
I enjoy reading the blog it is almost like being there Thanks for the video of Faith just wanted to reach down and pick her up and give her a hug Dan the garden looks great! funtimes memorable times love you all Mom
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