ada's baby blessing

January 09, 2017

In the LDS church, babies are given a blessing, usually by their fathers, sometime in the first few months of their life. These blessings differ from a christening or baptism. They have a few purposes: 1. To give the baby a name by which they will be known on the records of the church; 2. To give the child a blessing as directed by the Spirit.

On January 8, 2017, Ada was given a name and a blessing by her dad. While the voice for the blessing is only one person (Russ in Ada's case), you can invite worthy priesthood holders to join the circle. Russ and I chose to only invite immediate family members (our dads, brothers, and brothers-in-law), one cousin (Luis, who couldn't make it), and one friend (Rob Holt). We wanted to keep it small, and we wanted to invite people who are really important in our lives and in Ada's.

The most unfortunate event surrounding Ada's blessing was that her Papa T (Russ's dad) wasn't able to take part because he didn't make it to the church in time. We had had a hectic morning preparing for the get-together that would follow the blessing, and the whole thing was a tragedy in that if just one of many things was changed (if we had cooked only one pan of rolls before the meeting, if he had ridden to church with us, if he would have arrived literally 10 seconds earlier, etc.), he could have been there. Russ asked if the blessing could wait for just a minute, but was told we couldn't wait. We were truly so sad about how everything went down. It really was something that was hard to get over.

But Russ gave a lovely blessing. He promised she'd have a sound mind and body and that she'd grow healthy and strong, both physically and spiritually. He encouraged her to remember the heritage she has in the Gospel. He also counseled her to look to the example of the women in her life -- her mother, grandmothers, aunts, and cousins -- and extend the same love, kindness, and service she sees them show.

It was special to see Russ fulfill this Priesthood duty :)

Ada wore the dress that I wore for my blessing, so that was pretty special :)

Following the blessing, we had our friends and family over to the house for soup and treats. Our house has never been so full! After moving into our house (May 2015) we had wanted to have a house warming party, but we just never got around to it, so this was the first time we had had a lot of company. It was crazy! We were grateful to have so many people come out to support us and Ada. I was also very grateful to my mom and sister for helping me clean earlier in the week, as well as all the family and friends that brought food to the gathering -- I couldn't have done it without everyone's help.