Baptism Day

Children who attend The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints learn from a very early age that the age of accountability as set by the Lord is 8 years old. Meaning that any time after a child turns 8 they may choose to be baptized into the church, but not before as we believe they are innocent and not accountable for their choices until after that time. Obviously each person is at a different stage of life and understanding when they are 8 years old, but most children who are raised in the church look forward to their 8th birthday so that they may be baptized like their parents, teachers, and siblings before them. Clarissa was no different, she has been looking forward to this special birthday all year and the day finally came. Preceding this day, we have spent many an evening talking about what baptism means and what kind of a commitment it is. I am happy that Clarissa has made this choice to further explore what religion means to her. This is only the first step in many choices that she will have the opportunity to make throughout her life. Clarissa in her baptism dress. We took this picture for her invitations and she wore it after she was baptized.

Clarissa and Chris ready to go into the waters of baptism.

Clarissa and Krystal and their friends sang a song about when Jesus Christ was baptized.

Grandma and Poppa Mattson flew to Virginia to be here for Clarissa's birthday and baptism. Poppa gave a talk about baptism and the Holy Ghost. Grandma wrote this poem for Clarissa to keep in her journal:

On this your baptismal day

You have chosen your way

Of truth and right

To lead your life

With the Spirit to guide yoiu

How to walk in the light.

Valor, Fidelity, and Sacrifice

Our next period of study in our history group is that of World War I and II. To kick off our studies, our group took a field trip to the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia. We have often passed the signs for this memorial and wondered why it was so far inland of Virginia and not closer to Washington D.C. The first part of our tour was to gather in a WWII tent to see some military items and talk about D-Day. Some things we learned in this tent were: The "D" in D-Day stands for...drum roll please...day. That's right, in World War I, the military started referring to the day a battle was to take place as D-day and the hour...any guesses? H-hour. Obviously this was to keep all plans as a secret from the enemy. Another question that was answered was why the memorial was in Bedford, but I'll get to that later. To help the kids remember who was involved on D-day, the tour guide had the kids act it out. Clarissa and her two friends are the Allied forces. Thus, they are looking strong. Jared and a friend got to be the English Channel which was wild and crazy as a result of bad weather. Two other boys were Germany, weak and sick.

Then one of the boys got to be a model as we discussed the soldiers equipment and supplies.

Everything about the memorial is symbolic. This view shows a garden. The cement structure is in the shape of a sword. Behind that is a display of flowers representing the different nations of the Allied forces. Next comes the water that is the English channel, then the beaches of Normandy (shown later). In the background the tall structure represents the operation and is surrounded by flags from each of the twelve Allied nations.

This statue of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied Commander-in-Chief, is covered with a veranda that has a map of the D-day operation overhead. The frightening part was that each of the Germans underwater mines are marked with a white tile, and there were a lot of them.

At this wall, we learned a little about each of the American companies who went into action on June 6, 1944. We also listened to a voice recording of the speech that Eisenhower gave to the troops before they left England to cross the English Channel into France.

This large cement area represents the English Channel. This is our group listening to the tour guide as he explained how many men were lost that day. On either side are the names of those soldiers who lost their lives from all of the Allied troops. One side had the names of those from all the other countries other than American, the other side was full of American soldiers names. More than half of the lives lost that day were American.

This part of the Memorial represents the valor of these men as they were brought in on boats and set of the sandy beaches. The cross thing in the back were put into the water to tear up any boats that tried to cross the channel. The sand on the ground is actually sand brought in from the beaches of Normandy.

This is an actual airplane from D-Day. There were 1100 airplanes in the air that day. They say the sky was totally black for the planes were wing to wing as they flew in parachuters and dropped bombs. The day before D-day each of the 1100 airplanes were painted with the three white stripes so that they could be identified at Allied airplanes.

This part of the memorial represents the fallen and their sacrifice. There wasn't time to give proper burial to the dead. Each fallen soldier's gun was put into the ground with his helmet on top and identification tag hung around the gun. This is where I talk about why the monument is in Bedford. The company that was made up of boys from Bedford Virginia sent in 177 soldiers on D-day. Only 15 of those boys survived that day. The company of Bedford boys sustained more loss than any other company on D-day.

This statue represents fidelity. The artist made sure to include wedding rings on both soldiers. The bravery of these men must have been driven by the love they had for their families and their country.

The monument behind our family represents Operation Overlord. Overlord was the code name given to the whole operation. The white stripes represent the stripes on the airplanes and the shape of the top represents the shape of the roof lines of the homes in Normandy. Finally, the monument itself is 44 feet 6 inches high to commemorate the date of June 1944. And, as if that isn't symbolism enough there is another statue further down that has a plaque made of special marble that actually turns red when it rains.

We enjoyed that Grandma and Poppa Mattson were able to join us on this educational field trip. It was a beautiful spring day, we all felt the reverence as we pondered on those who have sacrificed for us so that we may live in this free country.

Statue of Liberty

An adorable and spontaneous 3-year old moment. What else do you do with a big rock in the yard, but pretend to be the statue of liberty? And yes, she actually stayed that way while I ran inside to get the camera. In true statuesque form, she hadn't moved a muscle.

Woof woof, Moo moo, Quack quack, Meow meow!

For weeks now, Clarissa had been planning her 8th birthday party. She won't be 8 until Thursday, but because of scheduling, we decided to have the party early. Finally, the day came! She wanted a Pet birthday party. I had a meeting in the morning so I got up early and decorated this cute doggy cake. The party wasn't until 3:00 and it just about killed Clarissa to have to wait that long, but finally - her friends arrived.

The first activity they did was to color Littlest Pet Shop coloring pages. It was fun to listen to their conversations as they sat still coloring.

While they colored, they had snacks like animals cookies, goldfish crackers, and gummy bears in these adorable little doggy dishes, which they took home with them.

My favorite part of the party is that Clarissa planned the games. She made this donkey for 'Pin the Tail on the Donkey' and her friends didn't even mind that she spelled Donkey "creatively."

The next game was animal charades. Can you tell what animal she's acting out?

Finally it was time for presents! Clarissa got several Littlest Pet Shop sets to add to her collection and some other fun gifts that she enjoyed.

Two more things that I loved about this day:

- 1 Clarissa had set aside an outfit for her party weeks ago and I just assumed that it would be one of her really pretty, flashy, girly outfits - but was much surprised when she came out wearing this old T-shirt. Of course, it has horses on it, what was I thinking?

- 2 When it was time to blow out the candles, Clarissa gingerly blew them the first time (on purpose) and then said to all her friends, "Come on everyone, let's all do it together!"

Where O where has my little eye gone, O where O where can it be? Chris asked Clarissa what part of the cake she wanted and she said the eye, so Chris cut it out of the center for her. Poor doggy!

Well, Clarissa said that it was the BEST birthday party she's ever had. I'm so glad that it met all her expectations. Now she can begin planning for next year.

We love Miss Hannah!

Clarissa and Krystal take dance class from an adorable college student named Miss Hannah. We love what she does with the girls. Each day she teaches them a little dance and they do it for the parents when we pick them up. Because of all the snow days we've had, Saturday was a make-up day where both the little girls and the big girls danced together for 2 hours then did a show for the parents. Miss Hannah brought her old costumes and let the girls dress up. They did a ballet dance from the Nutcracker. Each of the older girls were partnered with a younger girl. Clarissa is spinning C in this picture.

Krystal and L are bowing in front of the big mirrors.

Clarissa and Krystal doing pase in their practice leotards.

My Pay it Forward project

A year ago today we got the news that my sister-in-law's mother passed away. Brooke's mother, Judy, was lovingly known by many as Grandma "J." Grandma J was one of those rare individuals who always thinks of others before themselves and she loved to craft. Having those two qualities meant that Grandma J was always making things for other people. My first experience with this was for Shane and Brooke's wedding when Judy sewed my bridesmaid dress, along with Brooke's dress and all the other dresses for the wedding party. The first time I met her was when I showed up to try on the dress and she made a comment about how she thought I was supposed to be 5 months pregnant and I looked so skinny, I loved her immediately (incedentally, the dress was gorgeous and fit just fine). I think I only saw Grandma J two more times after that, but each time she made me feel like a million bucks and she loved my children as if they were her own grandchildren. So, when Brooke invited me to join her in a Pay it Forward day for her mom, I said of course. The Pay it Forward day consisted of making something homemade and giving it to someone, as these are the two things Grandma J loved the most. I had a busy day planned on Wednesday, but figured I could probably make some cookies and deliver them to a friend or something easy like that. Then...I got a phone call from a friend who was supposed to make a cake for our Young Women's program that night and she told me that she couldn't do it because her kids were sick with the flu. I thought to myself, "I HATE making cakes, but I'd really like to help out my friend and this could be my Pay it Forward project. So, after school for the day and a trip to the store for eggs, I started the cake at 4pm (the program was at 7pm). Rarely do I have a cake come out of the pan on the first try, but this one came out beautifully and I figured that Grandma J must be watching out for me from heaven. Then came the time to dye all the fondant for the "Olympic" rings (yes, I know they're not like the Olympics, these rings correspond with value colors in the Young Women's program). I like using fondant, it fun like playdough, but edible. However, on a time crunch, working the dye into seven different clumps of fondant was getting to be frustrating. I made it through the work by thinking to myself, "this is for you Grandma J, this is for you." I also had to remind myself that Grandma J would have done the project with a smile, not begrudgingly, so I put on a smile, finished the cake and made it on time for the program. It's nothing fancy really, but I got sooo many complements on the cake for both presentation and flavor. I told everyone my story and I just have to say, "I owe it all to you Grandma J - We love you and miss you, but you're memory lives on in all the homemade projects we make and the service we give."