She's 8!

Maddie's baptism was a crazy, awesome, unbelieveable, stressful, perfect, wonderful, spiritual, and amazing day.


We started off the day with breakfast. MMMmmmm....my favorite!


I used this recipe to make these:

The kids loved pulling chairs up to the oven to watch them puff while they baked and had even more fun eating them. Big hit here at our house. Big.

After breakfast we let her open a few presents, she said she couldn't decide what she was more excited about, the baptism or the presents. Lucky for her, she got to have both!

My Dad brought home flowers for me the day of my baptism and I remember thinking how cool that was. So we gave Maddie flowers for her special day. Hayden will love getting them for his, I am sure of that!

This book is now filled the sweet notes that every member of our family wrote to Maddie.

Most of the morning I spent working in the kitchen getting dinner ready and the blasted cake done. Yes, blasted stupid cake. I had a vision in my head of what I wanted it to look like. Note to self...the idea of a white cake, white frosting and RED raspberry filling is a good idea in theory....not the best idea in real life!

I watch Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes from time to time and figured "How hard could fondant be?!" I had bought fondant when I did Grace's Minnie Mouse cupcakes and sealed the rest up to use for Maddie's cake. When I pulled it out to use it, it was so stiff and there was no way it was going to cover the whole cake. C-R-A-P.

I remembered seeing a recipe for fondant on The Open Pantry and went to work making my own fondant. (Crazy dumb thing to do, I know.) I had a couple of hours before we had to be to the church so why not? It has to sit on the counter for an hour before using it so I used that time to straighten up the house, do the dishes and get everything set up.

An hour later, I rolled it out and started putting it on the cake. Not too bad. I will say that rolling it out will give you a workout. Seriously. There were a few kinks, raspberry filling oozing out of the layers and coloring my white fondant, not knowing how to make the seams not look obvious...you get the idea.

Josh came into the kitchen during one of my "alledged" breakdowns and said "Should have just bought a cake and saved the time..." Not smart dude.

My Mom always made us cakes for our birthday and I always said that I would do the same for my kids. Traditions, aren't they great?!

Not a single one of the cakes I have made have ever been posted on the ol' blog. This is a first. But for all the tears and "LDS" curse words, this one is here for your viewing pleasure....I give you the cake that took HOURS to make and looks simple as pie. Yep, I have a talent for making things harder than they have to be.

We had to be at the church by 2:15 and I hurried and showered and got dressed at lightning speed, kids were thrown into their clothes and their hair brushed. Just as we were to head out the door I realized I hadn't put the food in the oven to be baking while we were gone. So I ran back in, heated up the oven, covered the food and in it went.





We ran into the church, Maddie ran into a friend from her class in St. George last year who was up for a family baptism. Small world!





We rushed to get Josh and Maddie changed and had to hurry and get pictures done because it was going to start any second. I have an awesome talent for time management too.

It was an awesome experience. The meeting started and the stress of the day disappeared. I couldn't believe I was the mother of one of the cute kids sitting on the front row with their big white baptism clothes and little toes peeking out. She looked so old and grown up sitting there with her Dad listening to the talks.

I have been to MANY baptisms, heard many talks but this one was different. This was my little girl. Yes, I cried and blabbered through the entire thing. Time has flown. She isn't supposed to be this old yet. She makes me so proud and I love knowing that I am her Mom, and that while she is now old enough to be accountable for the decisions she makes, that she still needs me. For now at least.

A HUGE thank you to all of our family for traveling up, down, and from all around to be here for Maddie's special day. We love you!