Baptism Photos

Ava is turning 8 in a couple weeks.  Crazy, I know!  When did this happen?  How did this happen?  I don't know.  But my baby girl has chosen to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  

So I made her a beautiful dress.  She picked out the pattern and the fabric.  We were originally going to make it out of my wedding dress, but she wanted to wear it more than once, so I thought it best to make it out of something else.  She decided that she would like to have a pink sash to wear with it.  So we made that too.

 Since we didn't make the dress out of my wedding dress, we took some of the crystal beads off of it to use in her hair.  It turned out so pretty.  My uber-talented friend Cassie, did Ava's hair for the pictures. 

My sister in law, Melissa is super talented and took some amazing pictures of Ava and her cousin Caitlin at temple square.  They were born a few weeks apart and are getting baptized 1 day apart.  So now that I've edited all the photos the way I want them, get ready for a photo overload.

 These 2 are some of my favorites.  I think I'll photo shop, "I'll Go Inside Someday . . ." into them.

 While we were there, a photographer from the Ensign stopped and asked us if they could take some pictures for the magazine.  We signed a photo release and I guess we'll wait and see if they become magazine stars!

 These 2 are my favorites of them together.  It's been such a blessing to Ava, to have a cousin so close in age.  Since she doesn't have any sisters, Caitlin has been that surrogate sister.

 We brought her baby blessing dress and some twine to hang it from, and got this shot.  I LOVE it.

 The day before the pictures, Ava and I went and got a manicure.  She picked pink to match her sash.  It was a fun benefit of being the only girls in our family.  We get to do those kinds of things.

 I love this one too.  I love how it turned out with the black and white and colored CTR ring.

 The flowers were beautiful on Temple Square.  Seriously beautiful.

 Aunt Lissa asked Ava what her favorite scripture story was and she said it was of the First vision.  So we opened the scriptures to that and took some pictures of her reading it.

 They had so much fun taking pictures.  We got way better, more natural smiles out of them when they were together.

I just can't believe my Ava girl is old enough to be baptized.  She's so excited about it.  She's been reading the Book of Mormon every night, asking questions and preparing herself to make this big choice.  I'm so proud of her.