Carlaya's 8th Birthday!

Carlaya's 8th birthday was on a Friday, so I decorated the house a little the night before so she could at least wake up to some decorations (tradition) on her birthday. But it was a quick breakfast and off to school. I took down & then packed the decorations since she wouldn't be back home that day. We picked the kids up after school and headed straight to my hometown of Panaca. That night with all her Peterson cousins we had a small birthday party. It was really dim in the living room and WAY to much motion from all the kids so only a few of my pictures aren't blurry. :(

Inside this cute little "8" present was her very 1st set of REAL scriptures with her name on them an all! She was pretty stoked!! She's been asking for them for a while now.

"I like to look for rainbows......." (ya know, the baptism song) ha ha, this cake worked perfect for her big day Saturday!

I can't believe we have an 8 year old already!

Yup, pretty sure Colby just swiped some icing! LOL

On Feb. 11th, the day after her 8th Birthday she was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, by her daddy. :)

This dress was sewn by her Grandma Christensen many years ago for Jonathan's 3 sisters to wear for their baptisms. She thought it was special to wear the same dress! Thanks Grandma!!

This baptism day was actually chosen by Ronei, my exchange brother from Brazil. He lived with my parents last school year and recently returned to attend SUU. He took the discussions and called to let us all know he had chosen to be baptized on February 11th. Seeing how this was the day after Carlaya's birthday and we know NO ONE yet in our new ward or stake, we decided to share the day with him and have their baptism in Panaca, NV- my hometown. My brother Doug is on the far right and he baptized Ronei. Then Jonathan baptized Carlaya. It was a special day and to top it off, Ronei and Carlaya sang "When I am baptized" (the rainbow song) in Portuguese!

We only had 2 weeks to prepare for the baptism and I spent a lot of time helping Carlaya to learn and hopefully memorize the song in Portuguese. She did it to all of our surprise and could sing it perfectly at the top of her lungs here at home. Ronei is excellent on the guitar and we thought it would be awesome to have them sing that way. But unfortunately, they only had 1 chance to practice together and it was harder than Carlaya thought to do it to a guitar tune and not the piano. That combined with some nerves the day of, made it a little harder. But even with a soft voice and a few mess-ups, I thought she did great and I was so proud of her!