Our Baptism

The girl's were baptized and confirmed members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on January 15th 2011.  It was beautiful in every way. 

It was difficult to make a decision about who should participate directly in their program because so many people are special to them.  After an agonizing debate between the girls, they decided it had to be fair.  I'm not really sure what FAIR means, but they figured it out. 

Jordan and Nathan helped us with the piano music and McKenzie led the music.  Uncle Don gave the opening prayer.   KC played a musical number.  They had Grandma Mullen talk about baptism.  She explained how it bridges the gap between sin and repentance.   The girls listened to every word, even though one of them discovered a problem with a toe nail while she was talking. 

The girls were nervous, but precious as we walked down the hall to the font.  They waited patiently for the family to assemble and make sure the "order" they had previously worked out was still good.  Each one was baptized and it was beautiful.  The first two nearly froze to death because they waited and watched each other.   Thank heavens we had a hair dryer so we could "warm them up".  Each one was wrapped in a special baptism towel that we gave them the night before.  It had a darling poem with it......

Today you will be baptized

Your sins all washed away

And I will be there waiting

Excited in every way

For I'm a very special towel

With an important job to do

And I will be the one they take

To wrap around you

You can keep me as a reminder

Of this very special day

When you were baptized a member

And you sins were washed away

After changing into their beautiful white dresses we headed back down to the primary room.   CJ played a musical number.  In their own words Grandpa Curt is a "talker" and he did just that.  His talk on the Holy Ghost was longer than expected (almost 15 minutes), but every word was from his heart.  The girls actually listened very carefully and can still tell me what he said.  He talked about the Holy Ghost being our communicator with Heavenly Father.  Any time you mention "cell phone" the girls will pay attention.

The girls were then confirmed by their dad and were surrounded by a very large circle of loved ones.   After each blessing, it took a several minutes to go around the circle and give hugs and kisses.  Kiersten was last and managed to give hugs and kisses before and after her blessing. 

We are very grateful to Brother Rob Duncan from our bishopric who was there to conduct.  It is unanimous now that he really is "part of the family".

It was very special at the end because Great-Grandma Jo was able to give the closing prayer.  I was afraid for a moment that the guys (David, Mike and Rob) were going to dump the podium over while they were trying to situate the microphone so Grandma Jo could be heard. 

We gathered afterwards back at our home for a "light" brunch.  YES, I know that nothing I do is light, but that was a "light" menu for me.  We enjoyed spending time with family and friends and sharing this very special day with our loved ones. 

THE CAKE

Everyone who knows us, knows that THE CAKE has become a very important part of the Triplet's birthday celebrations.  I hope I will have time later this week to find pictures to post of all 8 birthdays.  It would be fun to see them all together.

I really struggled with this years cake.......the girls were not sure exactly what they wanted.  They knew it had to be white and they really wanted flowers.  In the end, we decided to do a stacked, white cake with flowers.  HMMMMMM, sounded kind of boring.  So I searched for photos and decided what I wanted.  Well, in production phase, it didn't quite work out, BUT I'm pretty happy with the finished product.

We started a few days ahead of time making flowers.  I didn't originally plan on help from the kids, but when Alexis said, "Am I old enough now to help with my cake?" I couldn't resist.  Making the roses took 3 days because I had so many helpers.  BUT, I think they turned out amazing.  KC spent a few hours painting them with pearl dust.  We color painted a bunch of them pink, but ended up only putting white ones on the cake. 

The night before the baptism (Friday), Grandma showed up at about 9:30pm, just in time to help mom assemble the cake.  It ended up taking much longer (it always does), and the plan changed several times as we ran into construction problems. 

The best story of the evening was when KC was helping to make the fondant.  I love marshmallow fondant because it's much easier to work with than the store bought stuff and it tastes great. (That may or may not be a good thing....)  KC started the recipe and called me to kitchen a while later, it just didn't look right.   As a matter of fact it looked down right WRONG?  We started a new batch and figured out that he added 1 and 1/2 cups Crisco instead of only 1/2.  The next batch turned out perfect and we were on our way.  Rolling, and icing, rolling and icing.  When we were finally done with the basic assembly and there were many flaws.  So Grandma had the idea to put a fondant ribbon around the base of each cake.  Then we started covering it up with roses and flowers that we had made.  In the end, you could hardly tell where any of the major flaws were.  I finished late into the night and after getting everything else ready to go it was almost 5 am before I got to bed.

The next morning (Saturday), when I woke up the cake was starting to tip, one side had given out on the middle layer.  Luckily, when I took the photos, you can't see it, because it's falling toward me.  Gotta love photography!

We cut the cake on Monday for the girls friend party and it was YUMMY!  Dad always bakes the cakes for mom and this one was perfect.  We filled it with butter cream and raspberry and it stayed perfectly  moist!  Everyone needed to eat a rose, and there were plenty to go around.  Mom ate WAY too many and the scale proved it. 

All in all, a beautiful white cake fit for three beautiful girls, dressed in white on their baptism day.