Samuel's 8th Birthday and Baptism

Samuel was such an excited boy all day! He had a great day at school and we took rainbow sherbet cups instead of cupcakes for his class birthday celebration. His school has a pretty strict policy on sugary sweets at school (even for holidays, birthdays, etc), so I thought this was a pretty good compromise. Samuel wanted me to bring in the big cupcakes with two inches of frosting on top :)


Samuel picked out an Oreo ice cream cake. Yum!

Aaron's parents were able to come down for his birthday and baptism. On Thursday, Samuel's actual birthday, we all went out to dinner. The food was delicious, but service was very slow due to there being another large group in the restaurant. It was getting late by the time we got home, so I made the boys get on their pajamas before doing cake and presents.


Lovin' the money!


Little remote controlled car from Grandma and Grandpa Brewster. Loves it!

He was very excited about all his awesome presents and he could hardly wait until today to use this birthday money to go buy more Legos! This boy looovveessss Legos!

Saturday was his baptism day. It was at the Stake Center next to the Oakland Temple. What an amazing building! It has two chapels, one of which is more of an auditorium with individual padded stadium seats and balcony.



Samuel's baptism was in the North Chapel which also housed the baptismal font. It is much smaller, but still a pretty good sized room. Samuel was so excited, he couldn't keep himself still enough to be very reverent, until the meeting started. Even then, it was difficult for him.

Aaron's parents gave beautiful talks: Susan spoke on Baptism, and Jon spoke on the Holy Ghost. It was wonderful and Samuel loved it, and we did too! We had an OK turnout considering we've only been in the ward for a few weeks, it was Saturday (and not Sunday), and it was after Stake Conference (so announcements about it hadn't been heard for two weeks). We had about 10 families come and so that helped to make it special.



After the baptismal service, we walked across the parking lot to the Oakland Visitors Center. They have a beautiful photography/art exhibit going on featuring the life of Christ. It was a nice way to keep the spirit of the day and still do something fun.



It was a beautiful day, both spiritually and physically. It was warm and sunny and made the temple grounds look even more beautiful! We are so grateful for our little boy and love him so much! We are proud he took this important step and he is very happy about it too.