Today we were finally able to bless Ellie. In our church, we don't baptize babies. Children get baptized when they are eight years old (or any age after that for converts) and they are able to choose for themselves. But we do have baby blessings. Basically, an LDS baby blessing is where a man with the priesthood (usually the baby's father) officially gives the baby a name on the records of the church and a blessing. The baby is usually wearing white, and although a baby blessing is about more than the clothes they wear, there is often a lot of focus put on the blessing outfit. With that being said I have always loved the idea that a girl's blessing dress is the first of three white dresses she will wear in her life. The other two being when she is baptized and gets married in the temple. Sadly, I'm not sure if Ellie will ever have the chance to have either of those white dresses during her life so I really wanted her one and only white dress to be something special. I like it when a blessing dress represents more than just the latest trends and so I was planning on Ellie wearing the same dress my mom was blessed in as a baby (
remember how Brynn wore the dress I was blessed in). But even at almost 4 months old the dress was way too big for Ellie. As a matter of fact, all the dresses I looked at were too big for her. So my amazing mom, who has a very special relationship with little Miss Ellie, offered to crochet a dress for her that would be just her size. The really amazing part is she decided to do this only 48 hours before Ellie's blessing day. We found the perfect
pattern and two days later this was the finished product.
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| The closest thing to a smile she would give us during our photo shoot. |
Words cannot describe what this little dress means to me. This is a very special dress for a very special little girl. It is simple yet amazingly beautiful and radiates the love that went into making it. The pictures don't even begin to capture how beautiful Ellie looked in her dress.
We blessed Ellie at home with just our immediate family rather than in church since we are still a little leery of taking her around a lot of people. Scott gave Ellie a very sweet and tender blessing that only a father could give. It was a wonderful day for Ellie.
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| The Fam |
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| Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Val |
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| Pooky and Papa |
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| Hale cousins. AZ cousins skyped in for the party. |
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| Grandma Linda and Grandpa Mike |
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| Mama and her girl. |
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| Mom and Dad |
