James' big day

I had been looking forward to, and dreading this day at the same time. I was super excited for James to take this step, but I also thought of it as the first step towards his growing up and eventually leaving me. And I have a really hard time thinking about that. This kid amazes me. Every year I am so impressed by him and his accomplishments. There is something that has happened though, since he turned eight. It's a like a switch has been turned on in him. He has seemed to mature overnight and it boggles my mind. The week leading up to his baptism was full of emotional ups and downs. He had made some poor choices one day and had been grounded from the Wii (and his brand new Super Mario Brothers game which he was obsessed with.) The day of his baptism my Dad had wanted to spend some one on one time with him. Ben was planning on taking the kids to the gym with him so he gave James a choice. James is never one to say no to the gym but this time he did. Not only did he want to spend time with my Dad, but he said that since he was grounded from video games he didn't want to be tempted by them at the gym. It was the first mature decision he had made and he made it all on his own. We were both really proud of him.  

He was the only one getting baptized that day so he got to pick the whole program. He wanted his two aunts to say the prayers, my Dad to do the talk on Baptism and my mom to do the talk on the Holy Ghost. He also wanted to sing "Praise to the Man" since that's his favorite song. My Dad revolved his whole talk around sailing and had brought a chart map from one of his sails. He had it on the ground with James and was talking about the different ships in our lives. One by one all the other children in the room gathered around until the map was surrounded. It was really sweet.

 My mom gave a really nice talk about the gifts of the Holy Ghost. It was a talk I remembered her giving when she was in the Primary Presidency when I was younger. She gave James a white box filled with little gifts to remind him of what the Holy Ghost can do. He absolutely loved it and felt really special.

Don't my boys look handsome?! 

My Grandma from Utah flew out to be a part of the day.