Turkey's Blessing

Sunday, Jan. 17th, was Turkey's blessing. It was an AMAZING day! I love baby blessings because it's sort of like the baby christening ceremony in other religions, but different in that a priesthood holder has the opportunity to give a baby individual blessings from a loving Heavenly Father. And usually the priesthood holder is the baby's father, and the dad gets to express what's in his heart for the baby. Hubs did an awesome job. He was so excited and nervous to give Turkey a blessing. He even bought a new suit and shaved off his beard. I didn't even recognize when he first came down the hall because it had been over three years since I had seen him without a beard. He looks good either way, but it was cute how hard he tries to do good things for Turkey. He is such a good daddy! I felt such love and joy during the blessing. AND I wasn't an emotional wreck like I thought I would be...just trickling streams of tears not raging rivers! Baby blessings used to be so hard when I was struggling to have a baby. I would always think about what a blessing babies are and I would imagine Hubs up there doing the blessing and I would think about what a good father he would be and then I would sit there and bawl. As I sat there during the blessing, I couldn't help but think of what a miracle this baby is in my life and how blessed I am. It was also very surreal and hard to believe that it was my baby at the center of that circle of men. Speaking of circle...we had 21 guys up there in Turkey's circle. Wow! And we didn't even have everyone that we wanted to have up there! But it was such a wonderful show of support for us. Everyone is just so excited right alongside us! And I know that Turkey is going to always be surrounded by good role models just like he was that Sunday afternoon, most especially his daddy.


For his blessing outfit, Turkey wore a family blessing dress that was worn by his great-grandpa who has the same name (not Turkey but his real name!). His great-grandpa was blessed in the dress in 1896. At first I wasn't sure Hubs would go for the idea. He is very macho man, and I didn't think he would like the idea of his son wearing a dress, but he was the one who brought up the idea first and was really excited. Wearing a family heirloom made the experience all that more special. Though it had me as a nervous wreck because I was so afraid that it would be my kid that would have a blow out or puke all over it. I put it on Turkey the last minute before we left for church and took it off as soon as I could when we got home. It was such a beautiful dress though. Turkey also wore the bonnet that his dad wore when we was blessed. It was a day of traditions!
After the church service, we headed to our house for a luncheon. I had decided I wanted ham and cheesy potatoes (a.k.a. funeral potatoes). Saturday night at 11:00 p.m. I was making four casserole dishes of cheesy potatoes. As I was throwing them together to bake the next day, I thought, "I was born for this! Bring it!" because I was remembering when I was a tween, my mom was relief society president and at that time they had a swarm of funerals that my mom ended up being in charge of. She would always call home and say, "I need two more funeral potatoes stat!" And I would whip them up and take them down to the church. Now I know that those days were just training for my big moment of hosting my very own Mormom affair! Anyway, when I walked into my house on Sunday, it was jam-packed. People were shoulder to shoulder! At first, people told me that the basement was full too. But when I went downstairs there was maybe one small family down there and my dad sprawled out on the couch watching football (according to my dad, a little kid was playing with the T.V. and turned on the football). My dad was like, "shhhhhh...don't tell anyone!" But I did tell and once some people move downstairs it wasn't as crowded. We were definitely filled to capacity though. We figure we had a little over sixty people over. Once again, there wasn't everyone that we had hoped to see but it was a good crowd!
Hub's sister and her family were able to come from Washington, lots of people (friends and family) came from G-ville...we had people from all over the place and from different chapters of our lives. It was just so neat to Hubs and me to see all the love and support that we have. I couldn't do all of this without my family and friends. That morning Hubs' mom came over and watched Turkey so that I could get ready and actually make it to church on time. And at the luncheon it was cute to see my mom, Hubs' mom, and my sister-in-law taking charge and making sure the food got out and everything was taken care of. Of course, Turkey was the star of the show. It is so good to know that he will always have this fan club and this safety net of friends and family in whatever he does. Overall, it was such a beautiful, special day!