Brooke's Baptism Weekend

On March 7, 2009, Brooke became an official member of The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints. The day itself was fantastic. Actually, thole weekend was great. On Thursday, Mark and Brooke flew down to Simi. Marks' brother Dave came home from his mission in Colorado and most of Marks family was in town to greet him. On Friday, I drove down with the rest of our clan to join them. The drive wasn't so bad. We stopped every half hour for potty breaks and nursings, but still got there before 3pm. Its usually a 6 hour drive, we did it in about 7 1/2 hours. The girls had a great time visiting with all their cousins (12 of the 15 on Marks side). The baptism was the next morning at 11am.The day started with the usual mishaps...Becca and Shay not wanting to put on a dress, rushing over to the Cheney's house to collect the refreshments (we stayed at a friends house) only to find them already taken care of :), forgetting a change of underwear for Brooke (thank goodness for all the girl cousins the same age), locking my keys in the car at the church, then realizing the refreshments were locked in the kitchen and we had no keys, then the font was overfilling because the valves were in a locked closet, 10 minutes before it was supposed to start Mark realized he too forgot a change of under garments and raced back to the house.... at the time, all these things were starting to overwhelm me. But once we were all sitting and able to listen to our good friend Amy play beautiful music, the spirit filled the room and everyone (or at least me) was relaxed and focused on the joy of Brooke being baptized. Both my mom and Mark's mom gave wonderful talks about baptism and the Holy Ghost. Brooke was a bit nervous about going under water, but after, she told me that she was totally relaxed and knew it would be ok.

I am so glad so many friends and family members were able to come and be apart of the wonderful day. It was so great to see everyone! I do have some pictures, but most of the "traditional" ones, like of Brooke in her white clothes and with our family, are on someone else's camera. So here is what I do have...
My family: Phil and Lara (my cousin and her husband), Mom, Dad, Brooke, Tate(my brother), us, My Aunt Diane and Uncle Lance. Brooke opening her gifts.Marks parents, Becca, Kelsie, Brooke, and cousin Alli (Dave is on the left)Our family (these pictures are small cuz I "stole" them off of Facebook, thanks Darlene!)
Keline and her baby, Alfredo, Darlene, me, Mark, and some kids. Kel and Dar are friends from High School..well, really since elementary school, but I think Kel and I knew each other even before then.

After the service, we all headed to the park for some fun, with 17 kids and 12 adults it's a must ;). On Sunday we all went to church not only to hear David's homecoming talk, but for the blessings of Michelle's (Marks sister) twin boys. They are about 3 weeks older than Austin and too cute for words. They also have another cousin (on her husbands side of the fam) that is 3 weeks younger than Austin, seeing all 4 of these little boys together was so much fun! After dinner we watched a slide show of some pictures of Dave's mission along with some from Mark's and Jonathan's and also some pictures of the Cheney kids growing up. Good times! I can't wait to see everyone again. (Dave, if you read this, we are fully expecting you and your folks to come up April 6-10th. weither we get a place in Tahoe or you just come to stay with us :). )On the bench: Mark, Kelsie, Jonathan and Jennifer (Marks sister and her husband), Alli and Sara (2 of their kids). On the swings: Michelle (Marks sister), Janae (sp?) and Casey walking away (her kids).Cousins on the swings: Tessa, Alli, Kelsie, Janae, and Sara. And Jonathan keeping an eye on things on the bench :)Ephriam and Austin..the stare down.Ephriam, Austin, and Killian...they didn't last long just sitting there :)