The Scott Zoo: Nate the Great turns 8!!

"I can't wait until I'm eight, for then I'll be baptized you see!!"

We've been blessed with an awesome little man in Nathaniel and he's reached the age of accountability. Months ago, we looked at what day of the week his 8th birthday would fall on, so that Mom and Dad could start looking at flights and plan their trip out here. December 30th was a Monday, which worked out perfectly for an FHE on baptism, with the activity being Nate's baptism. We scheduled it for 6:00 Monday, December 30th.

I love the look on Nate's face.
I can't remember what Eric was saying.

Keri, Karen and crew arrived Sunday evening so that they could participate in the baptism on Monday evening. The cousins love to get together and play and Monday they did a little of just that. I had also been given about six bags of women's clothing that us big girls went through. Raychelle and Hannah found some good things that fit, which was great! I was happy to find new owners and get the bags down to about two, which we gave to Goodwill.

Now, baptism prep. Mom and I had coordinated about a white tie. The boys get a white tie to wear when they are baptized and they can, hopefully will, keep it so that they can wear it when they go to the temple, and again have to dress in all white. We had the white shirt, white tie, white undies but still needed white pants. I called around and no one had any, so Mom and Dad, Nate and I, and Karen got in Mom and Dad's rental car and hit DAV. Thankfully, Heavenly Father cares about the little things enough that we were able to find a pair of capris that could be altered into white pants for Nate. We stopped at Wal-mart for some elastic and we were on our way.

Mom got busy altering the pants. We had baked the cake and then I let Nate decorate it Monday afternoon. We had recently watched "Turbo" so he wanted to do a Speedway track on this cake. It turned out pretty good. I frosted and he decorated. We had a dinner of baked pota
toes at 5:00 and then were out the door for the baptism around 5:30. We were going to start at six, sharp (most baptisms don't start on time, but we weren't going to let that happen as we would have the important people there before six.)

The perfected pose

Of course you have to take some pre-baptism pictures of the guest of honor and then one of the family.

The baptism was absolutely WONDERFUL!! We had the program all ready and I had asked Nate, at church, to ask the people he wanted (Kathy Etheridge and Grandma Hibbert) to speak at this baptism if they would speak. I saw when he asked Grandma. At church I had seen Kathy and had told Nate to go ask her, however I didn't follow up with specifics, so when Kathy saw that her name was on the program for speaking on baptism, she came up to me and said that Nate had just asked her to come, not to speak. I asked if she would be willing to share her testimony about the importance of baptism and she agreed to that.

We opened the meeting with the song, "I Like to Look for Rainbows," which is a baptism favorite. The testimony and Grandma's talk went great, inviting the spirit and teaching all in attendance (which was a pretty packed room). We went to the Young Women's room, where the baptismal font is, opened the doors and had all the kids sit by the glass so they could see the baptism. Grandpa Hibbert and Bishop were the witnesses. I noticed that as Nate got out of the water, his pants, were VERY transparent. Guess we didn't really think about that being an issue. Oh well.

While we waited for Nate and Eric to dry and get dressed, we had people pick a favorite song and we sang one verse. There were some good songs picked, both from the green hymn book and the Primary hymnbook. I can't remember who picked it, but we were singing, "Army of Helaman," and right as we sang "We must do as the Lord commands," Nate and Eric walk in. Then we continued with the chorus, "We are as the Army of Helaman, We have been taught in our youth, And we will be the Lord's missionaries, to bring the world his truth." I couldn't sing because I was crying. . I just kept directing the music with my mouth closed. The Spirit was amazing right at that moment. I will never forget it.

Bishop gave a welcome to the ward and then we had the closing song, which is Nate's favorite: "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus." Again, I couldn't finish the song and didn't get very far into it before I started crying again, especially when I looked at Nate and he climbed into Eric's lap because Nate was crying. Eric of course starts crying. It was such a tender moment. I looked up at Keri, she was crying. I looked at Kathy and she was crying, then I just stopped looking at people and just conducted the music. The presence of the Spirit testifying of the truthfulness of the importance of what had just happened was unforgettable. I lived on that spiritual experience for the rest of the week and will always hold it close to my heart.

BIRTHDAY CAKE!!

After the baptism, we came home and ate cake and ice cream. Nate wanted a speedway car, having recently watched the movie "TURBO" so we had baked the cake on Sunday and decorated it earlier on his birthday. Grandma Hibbert and bought fun stuff to assist in the decorating of said cake, so I let Nate do the design and assisted with the props.