On September 27th, Amelie chose to be baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was beyond wonderful to watch her be baptized by Bryce and to see the light that filled her that day. She got a journal from Grandma Brenda and wrote 20 pages the day of her baptism–pages about how she felt after she was baptized, how she knows Heavenly Father loves her, how she hopes to go to the temple someday. Beautiful beautiful words. She is so sincere and already seeks for truth and light. We love her so much.

Before the baptism.

At home afterwards in the darling dress that Grandma Austin bought for her.

It was wonderful to have Grandma and Grandpa Austin with us for this very special event and for Amelie to have the love and support of so many family members.

In our family, we have two birthday seasons: September and April (well, April and May if we count Bryce). It’s fun, but always a little crazy trying to fit in all the celebrations. We only do “friend” parties on certain years and this year happened to be one of those years for Amelie, so we had three birthday parties this past month.

We had a combined party for Amelie and Hayley. Here’s the cake I made.

Brad and Michelle brought a piñata. The kids were in heaven!

Bless their hearts, they all tried, several times, but it ended up taking some grown-up help to get the candy to spill out.

The Opening of the Presents.

Calder requested owl cupcakes for the party that he shared with Keian and Ellie this year.

Opening presents. We love our cousins.

And now, a photo series:

“It’s a rough life being the birthday boy.”

The Blowing of the Candle.

“Did you see that, guys?”

“Okay, okay. Maybe it’s not so bad being the birthday boy after all.”