mother's day + matson's baptism

last weekend was pretty special for our family. matson's was baptized at our church on mother's day. wonderful combo. clay (aka: reverend holland) baptized matson. he is the same minister that i worked at the church office with for a long time, married matt and me, and baptized reese.




i had such a peace about going up on the stage (our worship center is in an auditorium). usually i'm really nervous about going up there, but not this time. i was just worried about reese putting on a "show" for the congregation. i've seen and heard of many older siblings doing silly things up there like laying down on the ground, flashing the congregation and dancing. before church we showed reese exactly what was going to happen and where we were going to stand. she enjoyed learning and i then busted out with the bribe. i'm not above bribing my child to do what i want - when it's absolutely needed. i told her i'd give her fruit chews and a lollipop after she was still on the stage. she ended up wanting me to hold her so she could see. perfect. the only thing she did was show her tongue and talk a little. when clay turned to talk to reese she told him she wanted emersyn (my 3 month old niece) to be baptized too. he said there were no more baptisms that day and everyone laughed. it was cute. and, matson did great too. he looked a little unsure of the water bowl, but took the sprinkling on his head beautifully. the holy spirit was definitely present!









reese + matson with their cousins, brody + emersyn.


us with my brother and his family.


there are more pictures here if you'd like to see. our friend john did an excellent job of capturing matson's special day. thank you, john!



the rest of mother's day was nice and relaxing. after our guests left and we all had naps the four of us played in the baby pool in the backyard. it was matson's first time and he LOVED it!