Birthday and Baptism

Karissa celebrated her 8th birthday on Tuesday. As usual, she didn't have school on her birthday and got to celebrate with all her family and some extras. This year, Grandma Pat and Grandpa Jim, who were here for Christmas.

My kids love getting their own special balloon,

IKEA give free kids meals on Tuesdays, remember?

The library is a great place!

Especially when the library offers activities like making Frozen bracelets!

She wanted a very chocolate-y cake. It had extra holes from Erik's work with the candles.

She enjoyed playing with her presents from Christmas and all the new gifts she opened. Her ears aren't pierced, but she got some special clip-ons.

Karissa loves to read and is very good at it. Her intonation and voice fluctuation are excellent. She likes reading to her brothers and pretending to be a teacher to Austin with his school-work. She loves to make crafts of any kind and loves to plan out her play dates with what crafts she will do with her friend. She enjoys her piano lessons and will sometimes play longer than is required. She takes ballet and jazz through the school district program and seems to like it there. We haven't had as much music at home lately (bossy 3-year-old), but she always loves to dance and sing when it's on. When went ice skating later last week and she decided that's something she also really enjoys. Still cuddly and sensitive, she likes to comfort the boys when they get hurt. And of course, she still has a sweet tooth!

Since she turned 8 this year, she got to be baptized! It was a nice ceremony. Grandma gave the talk on baptism, Grandpa on the Holy Ghost, and Victoria gave a prayer. Jason, the kids, and I sang Love is Spoken Here, mostly because it's Erik's bedtime song and he usually sings it with Jason. He didn't at the baptism, of course, but the other kids did great and it was a unifying event for us. Grandma treated us to a dinner at Antonio's, the restaurant of Karissa's choice, afterwards.

Karissa has her own set of scriptures now and has read parts of the Bible on her own two times now. I can tell that today she was trying hard to remember her baptismal covenant made just yesterday. I'm very proud of her! When the member of the bishopric had her stand in sacrament meeting today for the ward to see her, she was barely taller than when she was sitting, but she was excited to stand and be welcomed as the ward's newest member.

Obviously taken over the summer. This was the picture we handed out on little cards with two little doughnuts on sticks to look like 8s. 

Congratulations and Happy Birthday Karissa!