Baptism Ideas

My oldest son was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints  within this past year.  This is a big deal and I wanted him to remember this special day and help him realize the important steps he was taking in getting baptized.  I thought I'd share some ideas of what we did to prepare for the day and what we did on that day to make it personal and special for him.

I already have shared that my sister has a talent for photography (check out her photography Facebook page) and so I enlisted her help in taking pictures of my son in his suit on temple square a little over a month before his baptism.  The temple was closed when we were taking pictures, but we still got some good ones on the temple grounds.  We were fortunate to do this on the beautiful grounds of the Salt Lake City Temple.  We had both collected ideas from Pinterest and knew what we wanted to have in ways of pictures.  Here are some favorites.

I knew that I wanted to use a picture to make the baptism announcements.  I looked around at some ideas (again, thank you Pinterest) and came up with this. (I omitted the personal information from the announcement to post here)  Check out more cute baptism announcements here and here.

My son was the only one getting baptized at the day and time he did so we were completely in charge of the program and so I made those myself as well.  I took out our personal information, but left the general layout of how it went.

Something else I did once I had my hands on his baptism pictures was to make a personalized 8x8 book to have filled out on that day including pages in the back for the guests to sign and write messages for him.  I found this idea here.  I was really pleased with how this turned out and I think it will be something for him to always cherish.  Here are some of the pages I included.

 This page was where he could write about his baptism and confirmation experience.

 My husband and I wrote our own personal messages to him as well. (Here are some more cute pictures of my son too)

Of course a big thing in helping my son be ready for his baptism day was to teach about baptism itself and the covenants he'd be making.  I found several good resources for this here, here, and here.

I also made sure we got some pictures on the baptism day itself to help us remember the special day.  Here is my son by a table we had set up to the entrance of the primary room.  You can see the book laying open for people to sign.  The program, words to music, pictures, and a gift from my sister with subway art are also on the table.  Oh, and some fun, colorful pens for people to use to sign the book.

Here is a picture of my son and his dad in the white clothes.

 Here is a picture our family after the baptism.

 We had lunch afterwards and we got a picture of my son with his brothers and all of his cousins on both sides of his family.  He was the first to be baptized on either side.  :)

I also got a picture of my son with both sets of grandparents.  You can see they were taken after lunch when things were more relaxed.

I also found some websites and blogs that had lots of different helpful information about preparing for the big day!  Check out this website for ideas on what to do 3, 2, 1 month prior to the baptism!  This site has a list of seven ideas for baptism prep.  This site has great ideas if you are looking for picture, announcement, and baptism party ideas.

This was a memorable and special day for my family and I was so grateful to have all of my and my husband's family members with us.  I hope you made it through this entire post.  Good luck!  :)

I'll Go Inside Someday

A favorite picture of my boys looking at the Salt Lake City Temple.  I like it so much I added some text to the picture. I like to think they are pondering it's beauty.  They probably aren't, but hey, you never know!