Madi's Baptism

This girl was so excited and ready to be baptized!  I have been very proud of her this year, she has really grown up in the last 6 months and has been trying so hard to be good!  She has come so far from the fit throwing 7 year old she was a year ago!  She truly wants to choose to be good and to choose to be happy.  She is very sweet and tender and always wanting to do something to make someone else happy.  When I had her last parent/teacher conference of 2nd grade her teacher told me, "she is so compassionate."  Wow, a proud Mom moment for me!  She was such good student and always going out of her way to be kind to the kids in her class.  She had a classmate with some learning disabilities and Madi was always the one to help her and to stand up for her when the boys made fun of her.  She would finish her own work and then always help Cami do her work.  There was a little girl in our ward for a time who was in a wheelchair and Madi met her in the hall one day, she was always thinking about her after that and on Christmas Day she took a card to her.  Ellen's dad later told Ryan that she loved the card so much she carried it around in her backpack on the back of her wheelchair every day.  She also loves to make cards and write notes to her friends and especially at home for Mom and Dad, I often think, when I see a new note she has tapped up somewhere, everyone needs a little girl to bring this kind of sweetness to their life!

Before her baptism I took her to the temple to do a photo shoot in her new white dress.  She had seen me do this for 3 of her friends and so she was so excited to finally get her turn!  We had a great time, here are some favorites...

The Big Day

 Getting ready with Daddy

Our close friend and family who were there to support Madi and celebrate with us...

 The Hansens - Ash, Baby Roam, Jet, Cora and Kurt

 The Eves - Kelton, Logan, Ellie, Bridger, Thatcher, Aunt Carolyn

 The Halls - Aunt Crystal, Brooke, Ammon, Dallin, Harrison, Matthew

 Grandma

 Great Grandpa Jens - I was so grateful for my Grandpa coming down!  So nice to have someone from my Mom's family to be here, and especially to have a Grandpa here! Grandpa was so sweet and didn't hesitate to say he'd make the drive down for Madi's baptism.  He was one of the witnesses.

 Best Friend Annie

 Annie's Family, The Woodburys - Kathryn, Jack, Annie, Grant, Heidi and Dustin

 Hannah, Bowen, Aunt Deli and Jackson

The Brooks - Grandpa Sam, Joey, Julianne, Sarah, Bishop Joe, Grandma Carolyn and Tommy.  We love the Brooks family and are grateful for their friendship, Bishop Joe was the 2nd witness and we loved having their Sam and Carolyn join us, we have grown to love them as we have gotten to know them over the years of them visiting Joe and Julianne.  

 Jens was throwing a fit for our attempted family picture so this is the best we got  - Mom and Madi

Madi's friend, Aubrey, was also here for the baptism but left before we did pictures, we also had Bro. McAffee and Sis. Christensen from our ward there.

After the baptism we invited everyone over for a delicious dutch oven dinner,  it was amazing!  Kurt and Ash's brother in law cooked it for us and it was so nice to have someone else do the cooking!  Dutch oven potatoes, beans and pulled pork, they were delish!  Mom made coconut cupcakes that were pretty much the best ever and Kathryn was so nice to make these adorable and unbelievably soft and delicious sugar cookies!

We were grateful for our family and close friends that were there with us on Madi's special day.  We missed a lot of the family that didn't make it and we really missed the ones that we know were watching but we couldn't see, Grandpa and Grandma Kathy and Todd.  Madi had a wonderful, special day, she was a little sad when it was over, she told me that she just wanted to remember exactly how she felt when she was in the water!  She was beaming and so happy, we were so proud of her and so happy that she chose to be baptized!