Our Son Can Now Go to Heaven. He'll Thank Us Later.

Everytime I sat down to write this post, I kept thinking of the baptism scene from My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  You know the scene where Gus is all "itsa your lucky day:  you get to be baptized in the Greek Church!"

We decided to have Hunter baptized this past spring.  JEGs and I are not super religious, but I figured that if the Mayans are right and the world ends in December, I wanted to give my kid a fighting chance.

JEGs was raised Ukrainian Orthodox and I was raised Methodist.  Since we were married by a Methodist priest, I really really really wanted to have Hunter baptized at my mother-in-law's church.  I knew it would be very special to her.  However, there were a couple stipulations that made it not possible, so we had him baptized at the church I went to as a child (and my parents are still very active members) Bensalem United Methodist in Bensalem, PA.

(There are two spelling errors on that invitation that I did fix before they went out.  Since my hard drive is dead, this was the only copy I could find in an e-mail.)

I know a lot of mothers use the train from their wedding dress to make a baptismal outfit for their children, but  loved that dress so much I don't want anyone going anywhere near it with a pair of scissors.  If you do, I will cut you. Not even joking.   I was kind of stumped as to what to get him,until my mother-in-law, Momma G, mentioned she still had JEGs' suit.  It was the cutest little button down shirt with overalls and a matching jacket.   The jacket was a teeny bit big, but otherwise, everything fit perfectly.

with jacket

sans jacket and serious face added.  

To honor his Uki background, Momma G purchased his baptismal cross.

The ceremony is pretty simple, and Hunter took the sprinkling of the holy water over his head like a champ.  

He held out for most of the service, but started to get a little fussy towards the end.

JEGs and I chose my eldest brother Russell to be Hunter's godfather and my cousin Tara came from Pittsburgh to be his godmother.  Although Tara is my cousin, I consider her one of my dearest friends as well (she was a bridesmaid in our wedding).  She stayed with us for the weekend, and it was awesome to spend time with her since I don't get to see her that often.  And I'll be honest, she was super helpful too, so it was kind of nice to have a personal assistant for a couple of days.  When I make it big, I'm hiring Tara.  We'll be like Britney and Fe.   But without the KFed.  

Anyway, since the church was a solid 40 minutes from our house, my parents were kind enough to host a luncheon at their house.  We did a picnic-style menu, complete with sandwiches, pasta salads and my sister-in-law Angie's famous deviled eggs.

I wasn't going to have a lot of time for decorating between the church service and the start of the luncheon, so I went simple with decor.  I strung a paper banner across the window, and added little monogram cupcake toppers.  Cause I can't NOT decorate.  

In the Ukrainian ceremony, the godparents are more involved and have candles that are lit during the service.  Since the godparents basically just nod their head and smile in our service, we  used the candles from JEGs' baptism as a centerpiece for the table

Get your grub on!

The weather was absolutely perfect, and many people took the opportunity to dine alfresco

You may remember Wyatt as the ring bearer at our wedding.  Here he is with JEGs' grandmother, "BaBa"

My niece Skylar is the cutest little thing.  Tara was on a mission to be her BFF by the end of the day.  Mission:  Accomplished.

The kids from both sides of the family got along so well together!

Huntface did so well the entire day, and finally passed out on JEGs' chest before we left.  You may now collectively go "awwwwwwww".

Always & Forever,
  ME