Book of Mormon Baptism Invitations

September was a big month for my little man! My son turned 8-years-old, and was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I’ve shown you the fun ways we marked his 8th birthday earlier in the month, but now I am going to show you what we did for his special baptism day. I don’t do big crazy birthday parties in the year that my child turns 8, like I do on other years, yet we still have a celebration with family and friends after the baptism. It is a fun challenge to come up with something appropriate for the tone of that special day, but still fun and meaningful to the child being honored. For my daughter, we went with a rainbow theme, because of a favorite song about baptism that talks about rainbows. For my son, I tossed around a lot of ideas, but this kid LOVES his scripture stories! He remembers every detail and gets excited about the heroes of the Book of Mormon and their stories of courage and integrity. So this dinner and celebration was all about the Book of Mormon. It started with a fun photo shoot and special invitation.

I inherited a bunch of costumes that could be from Book of Mormon or bible times. I dressed him in a tunic and added fabric, a belt, and wristlets, until he looked somewhat authentic. I had happened upon a wooden sword online and found a helmet and shield at the dollar store. In order to make the shield look less medieval, I popped off the dragon that used to decorate it. We went out to a wall near our house and took several pictures. My children tend to the dramatic, so I had no trouble getting him to look brave and serious. In fact, I had to tell him to loosen up a little or he would look like a bad guy.  I also took pictures of him with his scriptures in his regular Sunday clothes (yes, he wears a bolo tie to church often. We live in Arizona, and it was a gift from his grandma).  We staged a couple where he looked like he was pondering so that I could combine a couple of pictures to make this one.

And this invitation featuring that photo. The words on the announcement say, “We are as the army of Helaman We have been taught in our youth.” From a favorite primary song.(See reference) In fact, it turned out that our family sang that song (“We’ll Bring the World His Truth”) at the baptism! I used a shield (reminiscent of a CTR child) For his name and age.

Next up–a trip back to Zarahemla for our baptism dinner!