John Edward was baptized  on Sunday, April 19. We celebrated with family and had lots of fun activities over the weekend!

Erik's sister, Kari, and her husband, Scott, are John's Godparents so they made the drive from North Carolina with their 3 kiddos in tow to celebrate John's baptism weekend with us. Erik's parents (aks Nana & Papa) made the trip up as well so we had a house full of visitors and were able to spend a lot of quality time with his family while they were in town, which was wonderful because we don't get to see them very often.

We spent Friday at the Zoo and were fortunate enough to have beautiful weather for an April day. The kids had a great time. We packed a picnic lunch, saw a lot of animals (although not all of them were out so early in the year) and had an overall fantastic trip. I love watching our kids together because they are relatively close in age and these memories are going to be so special for them to look back on. 

Jack turned 1 just a few weeks before so we took the opportunity to celebrate his birthday with Erik's family while everyone was in town. We hosted the party at our house on Saturday (I know, we're crazy!) and had a few of Erik's extended family members able to join us as well. It was so great being able to celebrate with their family because we don't get the opportunity to usually do more than mail each other's kids their gifts. Here's the little man opening one of his presents!

Sunday morning was very busy thanks to having a house full of people that all needed to get ready at the same time! We made it to church on time and had the usual service with John's baptism being performed by Deacon Jim (who later retired and so this was one of the last baptisms he performed). All of the kids were very patient during the service and the baptism even though it turned out to be quite a long morning for everyone. Side note, make sure your nice camera is charged before you head to your child's baptism or all of your photos will be cell phone photos that need to be highly edited! 

After church we hosted a luncheon at our house. It was a blur because it was such a busy morning but we were able to get some pictures at the house as well.

After Erik's family left town, the boys and I went over to visit my parents and have some photos taken of John with the both of them. My dad had an injury from helping us try to get a swingset off of Craigslist and was not mobile enough to come to the ceremony or lunch at our house. This gave us a chance to get some photos of John in his baptismal outfit as well, with the nice camera that I charged before leaving the house. Ha!

All in all it was a very busy, but very fun weekend! Thank you to both of our families for celebrating John's baptism with us. It was such an important day in all of our lives.