Eight is Great!

I Like My Birthdays

I like my birthdays, every one;

Each brings a greater joy to me.

But I can't wait until I'm eight,

For then I'll be baptized, you see.

To be baptized as Jesus was

By one who holds the priesthood true

And thus obey God's holy laws

Is just the thing I want to do.

When hands are laid upon my head,

Then I'll receive the Holy Ghost.

And, if I listen carefully,

I'll have the blessing I need most.

-LDS Children's Songbook, page 104

Today LadyBug is turning eight! And eight is a special birthday. She will be able to be baptized. In preparation, we've taken a few photos of her in her dress to include on a little invitation for family and friends we want to invite to attend. This dress is 29 years old. It was the dress I was baptized in when I was eight. My mom made it for me and my favorite part of the dress was this little clear square button at the collar.


The neck was a little too tight, so I opened it up a bit. There were about four layers of unpicking and so I cut corners a bit in the re-model. I was in the middle of a series of migraines and just wanted to get the job done. Once I started to feel better, I was sad that I didn't unpick and open up the neck the 'right way.' I left the button off because LadyBug's new birthstone ring came with a little necklace that matches and I thought that would be a nice focus on the front of the dress.

We went to the Provo Library, an historical Utah building to take pictures. LadyBug wasn't too happy about having to get all dressed up and take pictures (she's just not a frilly dress kind of girl), especially when we realized I'd forgotten the camera after we got all the way to the library. Mr. Bug met us half-way between there and home with the camera and I bribed her with an extra piece of birthday cake if she'd smile for pictures. We talked about how neat the invitation to her baptism would be if it had her picture on it. Once we reached the library for the second time, she was pretty excited about it and even had the idea to take different poses for the different panes I wanted to include on the invitation layout. This is the main picture on the invitation.

Mr. Bug and I went over the photos together and decided that we definitely needed to include this photo on the invitation.

What a great photo!

Another cute shot.

Getting a little tired of posing -- but it still came out cute!

What a sweet girl!

This is a beautiful stained glass window in the new section of the building. It was difficult to get a picture without glare on her glasses because of the lighting on the window. Still, isn't she adorable!?

This is the spunky, sassy, fun side of LadyBug that only we get to see at home. She's very reserved in public. This was a spontaneous pose and I hurried to snap the picture. I'm so glad I got it on 'film.' This was another picture that was a 'must' for the invitation.


Here are a couple of 'artsy' photos. I'm definitely an amateur photographer, but I thought it would be fun to see if I could capture a few of the details. Pretty new silver shoes:

Birthstone ring:

Birthstone ring and matching necklace:

And here is the invitation, edited a bit. My sister-in-law put this together for me because she is a digital scrapbooking guru. I'm so pleased by how it turned out. And I'm definitely going to have to give digital scrapbooking a go before the next invitation needs to be sent out.