The Henderson Family: Shaelyn's Blessing

Shaelyn is now two months old. She has grown a lot, she now weighs 10 lbs. 9 oz. and she is in the 50th percentile for both height and weight. Just right! She is very smiley and social whenever someone is paying attention to her, but she is also content to just sit quietly. She is such a good baby and we all love her to pieces! There is no joy that can compare to the joy of having a baby. Seeing her smile and talk is so rewarding, I could do it all day. She is a great traveler and a very good sleeper. She consistently wakes up once a night, which is fine by me. She gets held a lot, especially by Claire and Uncle Ben. She is surrounded by people that love her.

She was blessed on Sunday, June 24th, 2012. We had lots of family come into town for the blessing, so it was fun, full, and hectic! On Thursday night, Chris and Rachel drove up from Vegas, and we got to spend Friday with their cute family.

Brooklyn and Shaelyn. Amazing what a difference two months can make! We took a picture of them side by side in April, and Brooklyn looked like a giant! They look like they're almost the same size now.

This is the picture of Brooklyn and Shaelyn in April. Crazy!

Our new tetherball pole. Rob actually built three tetherball poles: One for his dad for Father's Day, one for Stacey (she gave it to her husband for Father's Day), and one for us.

We recently bought new bikes for our family, and Uncle Chris was out on the bikes with the girls.

On Friday night, my parents and youngest siblings arrived and on Saturday morning, my Aunt Robin and Anna Merkley arrived. We had a great time being together.

Grammy and Grandfather enjoying their newest grandbabies.

Tank and Daisy, who is Chris and Rachel's dog. Tank was so excited to have another dog around and followed Daisy everywhere she went.

That white thing in my lap is Shaelyn's blessing dress. More on that later...

Riding bikes and playing outside.

Grandfather pulling Evie and Tank in the stroller.

Tis the season for Bandaids.

Sunday: THE BIG DAY.

So, the blessing dress. I started Shaelyn's blessing dress a couple weeks before she was born. I crocheted the bulk of it over April general conference. It was my own original design, since I couldn't find a pattern that looked like the picture I had in my mind. I knew exactly what it should look like, so I designed and redesigned until it looked that way. I finished the dress a couple of weeks after she was born, and felt so good for being prepared so early! Since the dress was done, I decided to make her a hat and some booties to go with it. All the items went together so nicely, and I was very excited for her to wear them. Here's a few pics of the original dress, shoes, and hat:

Thankfully, the hat and shoes both fit just right!

Shaelyn's dress version 1.0

The back of the dress.

Well, on the Monday before the blessing, I tried the dress on her to make sure the fit was okay. I had tried it on her a few times before that and it had always fit just fine, but I was nervous because she has been growing a lot lately. Sure enough, the dress was too small!! Aaaaahhh!

The top part still fit just fine, so I snipped off all of the bodice, and with each cut, a little piece of me died. But I thought I could still finish it in time if I worked really hard. And boy, I did work hard. I even took my crocheting with me when I went visiting teaching on Tuesday and I crocheted while I visited. I apologized to my ladies, because I normally wouldn't take crocheting with me, but they were all very understanding about the situation. The first few days, my progress was painfully slow because a small bit of redesigning was involved in order to make it bigger. Every time I had to re-do something, I felt the pressure of my time constraint. I do not usually crochet with such a fast deadline approaching, so it was a new and unwelcome experience. Once I got the increases figured out, the work went faster, although not as fast as I would have liked.

So even when all my company started arriving, the dress wasn't done, and I still had much work to do while they were all here. I'm sure I wasn't the best hostess because my attention was so divided. I worked on it as much as I could, and pulled a couple of extremely late nights working on it. On Saturday night, I stayed up with every intention of staying up all night if need be to finish that dress. Well, by body disagreed. After several nights of staying up way too late and trying to entertain lots of people and get all the food for the blessing ready to go, I was exhausted. I stayed up till about 1 AM and was determined to stay up as long as I had to, but after about an hour of nodding off and making virtually no progress, I decided that it was time to give up. The dress was not as long as I wanted it to be, but it was close. It would have to do. I was out of time. I finally had to admit to myself that I had done all I could, and although it wasn't perfect, it was good enough.

On the upside, my second attempt was much better designed (and prettier) than my first, and I am considering crocheting it to the length I want it to be just so I can take pictures of it and so Shaelyn can wear it to church. I think I will.

Anyway, the morning of the blessing went very smoothly, and we were all ready to go early (thank goodness!). A big thank you to everyone who helped me get ready for the blessing that morning; I had help putting up decorations, ironing, getting Shaelyn dressed, heating up food, pinning the slip, and many more things. I sure did appreciate the help! Here's a few pictures of the Sunday morning bustle:

Shaelyn is ready for her big day!

Jessica put up all the decorations. Thank you Jess!

Scott also had a big day: before church started, he was ordained an elder and received the Melchizedek Priesthood. We decided to do these two events on the same weekend so that we could have as many people as possible attending. Congratulations Scott!

Grandfather repairing a button.

Grammy got Shaelyn dressed.

Grammy and Shae.

Anna holding Shaelyn.

Dressed and ready! The blanket was made by Grandma Kelly.

And some more pictures before we headed off to church:

Grammy, Grandfather, and the Henderson girls!

Me and my girls!

And a few family pictures.

Tank wanted to be in the picture, too.

Grandma Kelly came even though she had just had foot surgery a day before! What a good grandma!

After that, we all went to the church and got to be a part of Scott's ordination to the office of an Elder, which was pretty unique. In order to be ordained, you have to have a member of your stake leadership there, and it just so happens that my dad is in the stake presidency in Doha. So all the members of the circle were family members.

And of course, then it was time for Shaelyn's blessing. Robert did a wonderful job on the blessing, and it was a very special and tender moment for me. Afterwards, Robert told me that she is a special spirit of God, meant for great things. My favorite part of the blessing was that he blessed Shaelyn with peace and happiness, and that she would feel the joy of making righteous choices. It was a very spiritual day for me, and I cried several times throughout the meeting. I felt so full of joy! I am so grateful for the completeness of the gospel and its ordinances. I thank my Heavenly Father for the power of the priesthood and that I am lucky enough to have that power in my home. What a blessing!

The group shot. Just missing Grandma, Papa, Grandma Cross, Aunt Robin, Uncle Scott, and Crystal Martin. Thanks to Marla and Kyle for driving back in from the lake, thanks to the Killpacks for driving in from Logan, and thanks to all the Merkleys for traveling from their various locations. We love you all and I'm grateful to have such great family members!

Then it was back home for some yummy food and visiting. It was so nice having the basement finished for this gathering, because then not all of us had to be tripping over each other as much. But it was still pretty crowded with around 40 people here! I wouldn't have it any other way, though. It was a great party!

Later, when things had calmed down and most of the company was gone, we took a few more pictures of the blessing girl.