Shelby's Blessing

Can we all just take a moment to admire this precious angel in her beautiful blessing dress?

Nick's mom has made all of her granddaughter's blessing dresses and all of them are always darling, but I think this one is SO cute! Shasta's dress had Shasta Daisies on it which made it unique to her so we wanted to do something unique for Shelby. Her dress has "racing stripes" up at the top to match the stripes found on a Shelby Cobra (all Nick's idea, but I went with it)! I LOVE eyelet material, but it's really hard to find and since Shasta's dress was eyelet I wasn't sure I should use it even if I could find some. But I wanted her dress to be textured so I picked out some material that I hoped would be cute as a dress. I have a really hard time visualizing any kind of sewing project so even though Raylene thought the fabric I chose would be cute, I wasn't so sure. But when I saw it all completed I fell in love with it! It's such a cute dress and it makes me sad that she only gets to wear it one time (twice including formal pictures to be taken on a later date).

 My mom contributed to her outfit by making her adorable headband. She hadn't seen the dress yet when she bought all the stuff to make it, and when I sent her a picture all the stuff she picked out matched perfectly! Shelby's dress had little pearl bead work on it and my mom happened to put pearls on the headband. I think it turned out so cute!

This picture shows the racing stripes a little better. It's really something only Nick and I would look at and see the meaning behind it.

While I was preparing for Shelby's special day I wanted everything to be perfect. She had to be freshly bathed, fingernails clipped, toes polished, her dress perfect, her headband just right, and I wanted everything for the brunch to run smoothly. I just wanted the memory of her blessing to be absolutely perfect so even the smallest hang ups seemed magnified because it took away from the perfection I wanted.

Then when Nick carried Shelby to the front of the chapel and I watched as the men in our family and a few friends from our ward followed him, that none of the stuff I stressed over really even mattered. Seeing Nick hold our tiny daughter in his arms to give her a name and a blessing IS the most perfect memory about her big day. And seeing those important men in our lives stand in a circle around her is exactly the memory I should take away from today.

I'm so thankful to have a husband that holds the priesthood and actively uses it to better our family. I have witnessed him give countless blessings; to me, to our children, to extended family members, and every time it makes me emotional because it is such a sacred gift and it reminds me how blessed I am to have him in my life. I can't imagine a life without a worthy Priesthood holder in my home. And even though it was Shelby's special day, I think it was a pretty special day for Nick too to be the one to give her a blessing. And it was a pretty special day for me too to get to witness that!

As for the rest of the day. My parents came up from Arizona to support Shelby. They only got to be here for about a day and a half which wasn't even close to long enough, but I'm so thankful they got to come. Nick's parents, siblings, nieces, and nephew all shared this day with us too. After sacrament meeting everyone came back to our house for brunch. We had breakfast burritos, pancakes, hashbrowns, fruit, and cinnamon rolls. It was pretty delicious! Thanks mom for all your help in the kitchen and everyone that brought food to share!

Grammy and Papa

Grandma and Grandpa (and Ruby and Gigi!)

Today really was perfect.