Sydney's Baptism

Two weekends ago, Ben, Samuel, Sydney and I took a road trip up to Sioux Falls for Sydney's Baptism. The drive was reasonably uneventful, which is exactly what we were hoping for when traveling with a 2.5 year old and a six month old. We had a great time in Sioux Falls seeing family and friends. My mom got all the kids together at her house on Saturday and put wax paper on her dinning room table and put out stamps, stickers, markers, glow in the dark sticks and a boat load of sugar which was a great recipe for CHAOS!! The kids had an amazing time and the rest of us needed a nap when it was all over. Dwight and Mallory are Sydney's Godparents and made the long drive up to SF as well. We got to show them the town and had a nice night. We are so thankful to have them as part of our lives and now a very special place in Sydney's life.
   Sydney's Baptism was the first major milestone in her life and was a perfect day. Since Sydney was Baptized during the Easter season she was Baptized at the front of the church that had tons of flowers and candles it was really pretty. The Baptism went great, Sydney was surrounded with our friends, my parents, her cousins, and was able to have the same Priest that married Ben and I and Baptize Sam, Baptize her as well. She smiled the entire time, and even started to giggle when Father Krogman started talking to her it was really cute. Both kids had a great day and were all smiles until they both passed out in the car just 5 minutes after we got on the road.
The ride home was even more uneventful than the ride up until we were 10 minutes from home when Samuel realized we weren't going back to grandma's house. At that point he broke down and cried until we got grandma on the phone. It was so sweet yet heartbreaking to see how much he missed her.

Thank you to everyone that made the trip up it really meant a lot to us.

 Overall, a great trip home for a special day!!

Here are some pictures from Sydney's big day.

Grandpa making Sydney giggle

 Sam counting squirrels and rabbits with Grandma

 Grandma's brilliant idea

 Post Sugar sword battle

 Grandma with the 4 oldest grandkids

 Samuel and his new cousin Lucy

Sydney with her Godparents

 Sydney with Father Krogman and family

 Sydney with Papa and Nana

Sydney with her Grandma and Grandpa

 Sydney in her baptism dress, knitted by her great-grandmothers friend in France

Samuel playing with his cousins at the brunch

Easter

We had a great Easter this year and was really fun to get the kids easter baskets and watch Samuel explore on his 1st Easter egg hunt. On Saturday our subdivision had an easter egg hunt and activities for the kids to participate in and there were 55 kids from the subdivision that came. Our neighborhood has a ton of kids and really fun to see Sam grow with them. Sydney already has 4 other kids that will be in her class in our subdivision.
Samuel liked the painting and bunny hop games, but LOVED looking for eggs and making/eating his easter bunny cupcake. Samuel would take an egg and before he would even put it in his basket he would open it to make sure it had candy in it. It was really funny to watch and he actually found one with nothing inside and he put the egg back. On, Sunday we spent the day at home as a family. Samuel looked for eggs around the house, played outside (it was a perfect day) and had a nice family dinner. Samuel is just like his dad and LOVES ham, I think he had more than me!
Sydney was a peach on Easter, as always and liked pulling the grass out of her Easter basket. She started sitting up on Easter too. She still needs support to do it, but she is getting stronger every day.

Here are some pictures from our Easter weekend.