8 is Great!

 Matty turned 8 at the beginning of this month! She had a great day! Usually school is out for the summer before Matty's birthday, but this year our summer vacation came a little later and Matty got to take cupcakes to 1st grade! She was thrilled! She had a lovely birthday party at Grandma Marla and Grandpa Jim's house. Lots of family came to help her celebrate. We had a BBQ and ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. Presents were opened in true Matty fashion! She is the funnest child to watch open gifts. She gets extremely excited over everything. Cards, small sums of cash, movies she already owns, underwear.  Oddly enough, she was less impressed with the wii we got her. Go figure. :) Anyways, she says things like "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!!!!!!" and "Oh My Goodness Sakes Heavens!!". She is always full of 'thank yous' and hugs. When it was time to blow out the candles on the cake and we weren't quite moving fast enough, she ordered us - "Sing To Me!"  Our family's version of the Happy Birthday song includes a bit at the end where everyone sings "How old are you? How old are you? How oooold are you? Happy Birthday to you!" and the Birthday girl is supposed to sing back her age. Matty got a little flustered and couldn't remember what to sing for a minute. We kind of reminded her but she didn't want any help from us. She shushed us and continued, "I am now eighty years old, I am now forty-eight years ooooold!".  Ha ha ha! We chuckled for a while about that one. What a cutie!

Well, Matty was especially excited about turning eight this year because that is the age when you can be baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! We had her baptism on the last day of June. It was such a beautiful occasion. Matty had been given a beautiful white dress on her birthday to wear on her baptism day. She looked and felt like a princess. She had so many friends and family come to support her on her special day. She and Anastyn even sang a song together during the baptism. She was baptized and confirmed by her Daddy. It was a lovely service. We had a family dinner afterwards complete with a cake made by Aletha Durtsche (our very favorite cake lady. ever.)

Beautiful Day. Beautiful Girl!

 Congratulations Matalyn Cate!!