Elijah's Blessing Day

We are so blessed to have this little sweetheart in our family!

 We blessed Elijah on August 5th.  It was the day after my brother Tim's reception so we were glad to have family in town for that who stayed for the blessing as well.

The blessing was wonderful.  I was struck again with how incredibly special it is for these new little people to be surrounded by men that love them and all hold the Priesthood.  Elijah had both his grandfathers, several of his uncles and of course his father, that stood in the circle along with the members of our Bishopric. All of these men love him and want the best for him in this life.

As people bore their testimonies I was thinking about the connectedness of that circle.  All the men are connected physically by the touch of their hands to each other and to my son, and connected spiritually through the Priesthood to each other and to God.  The symbolism and significance of that connection struck me very forcibly and I thought how appropriate it is that our baby's name is Elijah.

One of the things that I like about the name Elijah is that it is an every day reminder to me of the fact that my family has been sealed together in the temple.  When I think of the prophet Elijah I think of the sealing power that he restored to Joseph Smith.  I am so grateful that I know that if we live worthily our family is sealed together both in this life and through eternity.  Having little Elijah is a daily reminder to me that I want those promised blessings.

We are already at the point where we can't imagine life without this little guy in it.  We love him so much!

A picture of Father and son.  I'm so grateful that my kids have such a wonderful Dad!

The older boys were so exhausted from the whole reception the day before and then being up and ready for 9:00 church that there was no way I was going to try to get them to take a picture with us, so we just got one of Mom and Dad with baby Eli.

Lyndon and Bonnie with Elijah after the blessing. We love these people so much! It's like having extra grandparents that live close.  I think they have been present for every big event in my life which means so much to me.

Chris's parents were so so so kind to offer to host the luncheon after church.  I seriously don't know what I would have done if they hadn't.  There would have been no time or place to prepare food for everyone.  The food was delicious and beautiful (like everything his parents do) and it was fun to still have the tables set up from the reception so we could eat outside.  We just put canopies up to give a little shade from the heat.

We loved having so much family and so many friends to celebrate Eliah's blessing day!