Last month in May we celebrated my son’s eighth birthday at LEGOLAND. That was exciting all in itself, but there’s a reason why eighth birthdays are such a big deal in our family. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that’s when you’ve reached the age of accountability and can be baptized. It was something that our family has been looking forward to and planning for quite some time. Although I didn’t take nearly enough pictures I knew that I had to share some of the details of his special day with y’all. There’s a reason why we say “it’s great to be eight”. To protect privacy a lot of names had to be Photoshopped out of images. Please excuse any issues with quality or clarity.

it’s great to be eight

I contacted my talented friend Heidi earlier this year about doing a custom watercolor for me. She delivered big time! Her rendering of my husband baptizing our son turned out even better than I had hoped! I was able to use the digital version of it on his baptism announcements and the programs on the big day. I designed the programs in Photoshop Elements and I couldn’t have been happier with how they turned out.

It’s traditional to have guest books at baptisms but I’ve shared before that I’m not a fan of “regular” sign in books. I knew I wanted to have a photo mat that we could then use for his custom watercolor from Heidi. My husband had the idea to get one that was 12×12 size so we could easily slip it into his baby book afterwards. I ordered one from this Etsy shop and I was really pleased with the quality when it arrived.

it’s all in the details

Refreshments are typically served afterwards so we gave our son the choice of what he would like. He chose a doughnut dessert bar. We decided to have both regular round doughnuts, as well as doughnut holes. In true Justine fashion, I didn’t get pictures of the food table once all the food was on it. I also used jars of taffy to stick a copy of his baptism announcement and some more doughnut holes on sticks out of them.

The most important thing about the day was of course the ordinance of baptism itself. We’re also very thankful that we had so many friends and family there to show our son love and support. With so much family in town we took the opportunity to bless baby girl, which is similar to a christening. That was the cherry on an already perfect cake.

Do you have a hard time remembering to take pictures at parties or get togethers?? There just never seems to be enough time!