A happy and special day

Peter Ralph Gray

Baptized by Robert Michael Gray

8 March 2014

 This was the most important part of the day.  The special and sacred ordinance of baptism, to follow in the path of Jesus Christ and receive that special gift of the Holy Ghost.  No amount of fun preparations or cookies could outshine this sweet boy in white.  He was excited, nervous, and so happy to be making this choice.  It was awesome!  He told me he had a hard time holding still after the baptism, when it was time for his confirmation.  He said he was just too excited and happy.  That is all I wanted for him, to be happy on this day and feel the spirit.

Look at those sweet kids.  A happy family.

 Those who came to support Peter.  We have such a terrific family!

A beautiful sunny day means it is hard to smile with a bright sun in your eyes.  But it also means that you can go home and have your lunch outside with fun cousins to play with.  We planned a white party for Peter after the baptism.  Chicken Alfredo, milk, cookies (baptism ones), butter noodles, poppy seed muffins, cauliflower (not Peter's choice but we needed a veggie in there), and rolls.  OH!  And rice krispy treats!  Peter made sure to grab plenty of those after he ate his noodles.  It was fun!  Although, Peter being the partial introvert he is had had enough of the crowds and spent a good portion of the afternoon on his own.  The important stuff was done and he wanted to play his own games.  He is such a wonderful kid.

I had him write down his feelings/memories from the day.  This is what he wrote:

"I felt so excited, nervous, and after I was baptized I felt so happy.  I thought it was fun.  I felt the love of Jesus.  I always want to feel the love of Jesus."

Then I had him write down his testimony the next morning before church.

"I believe in Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father.  My baptism day was a special day because I felt the Spirit so much and I was excited to be baptized and feel the love of Jesus.  I want to be with Jesus again and how I can do that is by being honest and following what He wants me to do.  I like that I get to learn about Jesus so I can be happy again.  I know the church is true and I know that I went through the veil so I could do my best on Earth."

Such a wonderful boy!  I am so happy for him and that he really is trying his best on Earth.  This is our family.  This is who we want to be with forever and Peter just took another important step on this path to forever.  

As ready as we can get

Well,  I think I have got it all ready.  Peter took a bath tonight and washed his hair.  The shirts are ironed.  The cookies are baked and ready to be frosted.  The house is clean.  The floors are mopped.  The bathrooms are clean.  The laundry is done.  Peter has one pair of clean white underwear ready for tomorrow.  They are peacefully asleep.  The last load of baking dishes are being washed and I am off to bed before I wake in the morning to frost those cookies, oh and put the rolls out to rise.  We are ready for a beautiful day.

Being Thankful for this Day

So much time has been spent on getting Peter ready for his birthday or his baptism.  The other kids have been patient with all this attention on Peter, and along the way they they have been doing awesome things.

 Little Miss Haley is successfully wearing underwear!  Yahoo!  She is such a big girl and we are so happy and proud.  She loves that she has been able to do this and is proud of herself too.

 William lost his first tooth!  And the other one is already coming in.  He was brave enough to let dad pull it out.

Caleb was up to more inventing and building last night and built himself a temporary fort in the tree.  He loved doing it all on his own and had a blast up there.  But he took it all down because he said people might try to steal the wood when we were not there.  Poor kid has learned about dishonesty the sad way.

 Peter had his last week of the countdown, he is ready to go.  He received his baptism towel and I cannot believe the big day is this Saturday!  Wow, all this preparation and work and we are finally here.  He is excited.  The week before we talked about the Holy Ghost and he received a little fabric book I made about how the Holy Ghost helps us.

Diedre's version of baptism cookies for Peter.  I looked and looked on the web for baptism cookies.  All I could find were the 8 (which I already knew about), CTR shields or catholic crosses.  So, my head came up with the gingerbread boy design.  Legs are blue for the water, white shirt for the clothing, and my Peter boy with his blond hair and sweet smile.  Simple but I like it.  I think we are ready for the big day.  I hope it is special and fun for him and the rest of us.