8 years old and a baptism

Our oldest child is 8 years old.  Time goes by so fast!  Will that ever stop being so crazy to me?  Back in May, Madeleine turned 8.  She had been looking forward to it for a couple reasons.  One was that she was very eager to be baptized.  The other, and maybe what she was most excited for, was that we were letting her get her ears pierced this year.  She got them pierced as a baby but she kept pulling them out so we eventually quit putting them back in.  Then for the past couple years I thought about doing it as part of her birthday gifts, but each of those times it was decided that she had gotten plenty of gifts and didn't need another one.  So this was her lucky year.  And she has not been disappointed.  She counted down the days till she was able to change into different earrings and she still can't wait to wear some dangly ones. 

As you can see, I attempted a barbie cake.  It tasted good, I can say that for certain.  But if Alayna ever wants one in the future I hope I can learn from this experience what I need to do differently to make it a bit prettier.  Madeleine loved it though and since it was delicious it must have been a success.  Don't judge a book by its cover, or something like that, right?

June 16th was the big baptism day.  Her actual birthday fell the day after our ward's regular day for baptizing the kids turning 8, so she got to wait almost a month.  It worked out great though since it made it easier for a family members to come without missing work, etc.

We are so pround of her!  It feels like we are in a different stage of parenthood now that our oldest has been baptized.  Like the issues we are dealing with now and in the years to come are much different (and do I dare say more difficult?) than the things we struggled with when our kids were little.  It's almost like we can't claim to be young parents anymore though I definitely still feel young.  Our kids are older so we must be too, right?  Spencer is 35 now so I guess now we're mid-30's parents.  I don't know.  Just rambling...

Moving on.  My dad came from Mesa.  Thanks, Dad!  It was fun to spend the weekend with him. 

And Spencer's mom came from Oregon.  She stayed for a week and the kids were in heaven!  Truthfully, we all were!  We loved having her here and we really appreciated that she was here with us even though she may have wanted to rush off to see Holly and Mark's newest little one who was born during her stay with us.  Don't worry, she went to be with them when she left Texas.  We're hoping we can figure out a way to get Paul and Sandi to retire wherever we live.  Maybe we need to convince Spencer's siblings and their families to move here too.  It's pretty nice here, guys...come on...who's in??