Kassidy's Baby Blessing Weekend

The weekend of June 20th through the 22nd was jam packed and SO MUCH FUN!  Maybe in large part because we filled it with family and didn't even have to drive 20 hours round trip to do it.  I love when we don't drive home...

Anyway, it was so wonderful of family to travel all that way to be here for Kassidy's baby blessing.  For those who don't know, this is when a worthy Priesthood holder (Steve in our family) officially gives the baby a name for the church records and also gives the child a blessing - often of health, faith, a path for the future, and anything that child may stand in need of at that time.  It's a special time in our family to be there as Steve uses the Priesthood to bless our child and to have a sort of welcoming to the family party with all those who can be in attendance with us.

The weekend started with family arriving on the 20th.  Grandma and Papa Bennett and Aunt Kathy and Cousin Amanda all drove up together and we were thrilled to have them!  Aunt Kathy automatically makes things more fun, including MG's obsession at the time - The Little Blue Truck.

Getting some baby snuggles in since Amanda is obviously no longer baby snuggling size.

That night we mostly just enjoyed time with family until Amanda and Kathy had to head to the hotel and the rest of us all headed to bed to get ready for a very eventful Saturday.

Saturday morning we headed out right away to enjoy the beautiful weather and feed birds at one of our local parks.  The girls love doing this, despite the sometimes eventful and injury prone trips we have had here.

We still had time to fill though, and Steve is not one for sitting still when there is family to be shown around, not to mention our house isn't huge, so we headed to another fun park, Howard Amon.

I love, once again, the difference between our two big girls.  Mckayla spent the whole time at the playground swinging, first with me and then with Papa.

Ellie, who hates swings, spent the whole time VERY focused on making a "sandcastle" with Grandma.

After some time where our girls dug and swung and Amanda enjoyed running all over the steamboat themed playground too fast for me to get pictures, we all enjoyed watching Steve push Amanda on a zip-line swing so hard he fell down, and then headed down to the river to let the girls throw rocks - a favorite past time of theirs.

There is just something so absolutely right about this picture - Steve and Ray talking about water flow or something together.

Ellie even found this heart-shaped rock that she loved.

 And it was fitting for all the love she was getting from family.  She especially enjoyed her time with Amanda, who she would probably follow right off the end of the Earth if Amanda asked her to.

After so much time in the sun having fun at the park, it was lunch and nap time, so we headed home to get the girls some rest so they could welcome our other visitors when they woke up.  That afternoon Aunt Lori and Uncle Curtis arrived, and as we had planned earlier, we all went to a Dust Devils game to watch our local minor league baseball team.  We love going to sporting events, and it was so fun to listen to Curtis heckle and to be able to talk baseball with him.  Uncle Curtis also brought many baseball game traditions with him which the girls thoroughly enjoyed, namely eating peanuts and caramel popcorn.

 Steve even convinced Ellie to go do "Dusty's Dash" with him at the 7th inning stretch (after carrying her crying across the first half of the field).

 We all had a blast!  Oh, and if you love their matching tie-dye shirts as much as I do, you can thank Aunt Lori, Uncle Curtis, and cousin Bridget.  They love getting our girls big sister gifts as well as tie-dye, and they looked sooo cute we just had to have them wear them to the ballgame!

 We got home late after the game ended with fireworks and got everyone to bed so we could enjoy our Sabbath and the real reason for our ultra fun visit.

 The morning started with some quality family time, such as snuggles with Papa during cartoons.

 And coloring with Kathy and Amanda after breakfast and baths.

Then Papa Rose, Grandma Sun, Grandma Moon, Aunt Julie, Aunt Jennifer, and cousins Wyatt, Aubrey, and Enzo arrived as well.  We all drove to the church and enjoyed a special blessing as Steve, Ray, Curtis, and our Bishop blessed Kassidy.

After Sacrament meeting was over we all headed home and tried to get a few pictures of the whole family.  We were moderately successful given how stinking bright it was outside.

Love, love, love him.  And he love, love, loves his girls.

Steve and I both got to enjoy watching our parents enjoy Miss Kassidy.

 Or "Sassy" as Mckayla would say.

 We also continued our tradition of welcoming our girls with family and prime rib, which is a wonderful and delicious tradition.  Steve always does a fabulous job making us all a tasty dinner.

Poor Kassidy got mauled by the paparazzi while Daddy made dinner, but we got a few cute pictures of her in her special blessing dress.  We don't actually have to bless babies in all white, but it's a tradition Steve and I both really like and plan to continue as it reminds us how special Priesthood blessings are and how pure these little babies are as their spirits were so recently with our Father in Heaven.

After that we just got to sit back with very full stomachs and enjoy family.  These two were especially entertaining at times.

 This was literally seconds later when Ellie was cracking herself up calling Wyatt a "stinkerton" and he didn't think it was very funny.

 We loved having such a crazy, full, chaotic house.

 And Ellie enjoyed being her wacky, hilarious ham of a self.  Here she was trying on her new princess skirt which Grandma Bennett made.  At some point she decided with pants on her head too she could Hula?  That girl cracks me up.

As you can tell, we had a fabulous, full weekend.  Once again we can't express enough how grateful we are for people to take time away from work, families, etc to come be with us where we're a bit of an island away from both families.  It was such a memorable and love-filled weekend for our growing Bennett Zoo!