Ivan's Baby Blessing

Today was Ivan's baby blessing. Yesterday Aaron and I spent literally all day getting our house cleaned up, and the grocery shopping done, and the food prepared for this event. We blessed Ivan in our ward, and then had lunch at our apartment afterwards. Ivan got blessed in the same outfit that Lincoln did. It was made for us by my Great Grandma Roberts.


We have a knack of being really late for church every week (ya, we have 11:30am church, you'd think we could make it on time, but we never do. Mostly my fault.) and we also have a really big ward, and there was another baby blessing this week besides ours, so it was very important that we be on time to save seats for the 25 people we invited to attend. I got up at 6:30am (with Ivan, but then just stayed up) to make sure that we were all ready to be at the church by 11:00am so we could save seats. It worked! By some miracle all four of us were ready and sitting in the foyer at 11:00am (the ward before us has priesthood opening exercises in the chapel right before our ward meets, so we had to wait for them to get out before we could go in). Above is a picture of Aaron and Lincoln waiting in the foyer. Aren't they handsome?

The blessing went really well. Aaron did a beautiful job. We had joked around about him forgetting and calling Ivan Lincoln in the blessing, and so I was afraid he might. I kept reminding him to practice saying "Ivan Erastus Swan" slowly and clearly. You know, you always hear those stories about how they messed the name up in the blessing and then that's how it had to be. Anyways, no worries, because Aaron did awesome!

Aaron (obviously from the statements above) gave the blessing, and these were the men in the circle: Kerry Sparks, Kirk Hilton, Nelson Strong, Kelly Swan, and Kirk Bean.

Afterwards, I said Aaron you know we have to have more kids now, and he said why? And I said, because you blessed Ivan that he would be a good example to his younger siblings (note the "s" that makes it plural). And Aaron said, ya sorry, that was the one thing I really felt inspired to say, it kind of just came to my mind. So, I guess somewhere in the future are at least two more kids for us. :) Someday. In the distant future.

After Sacrament meeting we all headed back to our house for lunch. Here is Aaron's side of the family, left to right: Melissa (Ryan's girlfriend), Ryan, Aaron, Lincoln, Me, Ivan, Kelly, Whitney, and Kirk. Aunt Karen, Aunt Debby, and Lindsey were at the blessing too, but couldn't make it afterwards for lunch.

And here is my side of the family, back to front, left to right: Tanya, Nelson, Bryan, Kirk, Stephanie, Kerry, Mom, Emily, Penny, Me, Lincoln, Aaron, Ivan, and Tanner.

A funny/sad thing happened while we were preparing lunch. Aaron and I made a turkey and got stuff for sandwiches, so that we could have turkey sandwiches, and then everyone who came brought a potluck dish (thanks everyone!). Anyways, I wanted to try out this new punch recipe called lemonade-strawberry punch, so I had asked my mom to bring her punch bowl down. We had everything ready except the punch and we were getting it ready. I had pured in the liter of gingerale, Tanner had poured in the nine cans of water to mix the lemonade which was already in there, Whitney was putting ice in, and Mom was slicing strawberries in it. All of the sudden out of no where, no one was even touching it, the punch bowl cracked into three pieces and all the punch came gushing out all over the table and onto the floor, while everyone in the kitchen just stood staring in amazement. Since Steph and I were in bare feet we waded (yes, waded) through the punch and picked up the strawberry pieces, while Whit, Kirk, and Kelly ran for towels. I think we used every single one of Lincoln's and Ivan's bath towels to try and soak up all the punch. What a mess. We had to delay lunch for 20 minutes so that I could do a quick mop job. My poor mom had punch all down the front of her skirt. Sad. And all we could do was laugh about it because it was no one's fault. We still can't figure out why the bowl cracked. And, after several attempts at wiping everything down, my table and floor are still sticky.

But, it didn't ruin lunch, or the day. We still enjoyed having everyone over to our place. And I think everyone got plenty to eat and enjoyed each other's company. So we'll label the day a success! Thanks everyone for coming and sharing Ivan's special day with us. We missed all of you who weren't able to make it. :)