In our church, when the babies are old enough to be brought to church, the fathers or other Priesthood holders can give the babies a name and a blessing in front of the congregation. We decided to wait and give the babies their blessings while everyone was in town for Christmas.
When my mom was alive, she insisted on providing two things for all the grandchildren. One was a cradle. She always wanted a cradle for her children, but she knew how extravagant they are since you only use them for 3 to 5 months, and she could never justify it while she was raising her 6 kids. So she provided one for each family of grand kids so that her grandchildren would have cradles. Of course, we used the one she bought for Bryson for the first few months for the babies.
The second thing she provided for each of the grandchildren was their blessing gowns or suits. They were another extravagance since the babies use them for a total of a few hours. She typically bought them like she did the little suit for Bryson which we used for Austin. But my mom made one blessing gown for my niece, Danielle, who is now almost 16 years old. I contacted my brother Scott to see if he still had the gown, and sure enough he was able to find it and send it to me just in time for the blessings. I remember when my mom crocheted it for Danielle along with a matching bonnet, booties, and blanket. It fit Kadence nicely for her blessing. My mom's legacy lived on for this blessing day. Not only was she able to be a part of it through the clothes, the white crocheted blankets behind the babies in the pictures below were crocheted by a lady in Utah that was the recipient of a lot of my mom's craft supplies. She crocheted them with some of my mom's yarn which was likely purchased for just such an occasion.
