Sharlotte Marie

This weekend I spent my time with the family. We all met in Fargo, to golf, chat, eat, and drink. We gathered together to laugh, to smile, to love and of course make some memories. We would have loved to spent the Labor Day Weekend on the Lake and sleeping under the stars. BUT we had something more important to do. We baptized Sharlotte Marie Koch on Sunday, and officially welcomed her into the church and into this world. She was striped of her clothes and dunked into the holy water, quite a moving sight... yet she didn't think so....SHE HATED IT.

As I held her in my arms, I am never left not amazed. She is perfect. Even though she had a little break out on the face.... it doesn't matter, her family, me included can't get enough of her. As I stood beside her parents and sisters, and promised to be a role model for her in faith and in life, I blinked back a tear or two, for I know just how important my role in her life will be, not just because she is my godchild and I am her godmother, but because of the relationships I already have with her two older sisters...In their eyes I am a super hero. I am the wild crazy fun loving cousin who takes them to Clay your Way to paint, or to Beads on Broadway to make the perfect braclet. The cousin who takes them to Hollister and Aero for the latest fashion. The girl who shows up out of the blue to take you on a special day for no reason. Sabrina and Sadey don't love me because of all the things I do with them, or all the places I take them or might buy them...but because I am there. I am constant. I am an example not by my words but my my actions. I show them respect and give them love. We laugh. We smile. We love. We live. Something I know I will do just that with, with Sharlotte. I take my role in the lives of my younger cousins very seriously. For there are many eyes that watch me, even when I don't think they can see me or hear me. And its through those very eyes that help me grow into more, grow into the person I have always been meant to be. Thou the example may be hard to set, the reward of the love and happiness I share with those that came after me...make it completely worth it!

Sharlotte Marie..my little monkey...I promise that I will always be someone you can laugh with, smile with. Someone who will spoil you but also teach you. Someone who will love you even if you are being a little monster. Someone who you can always come to about anything, everything or nothing. Someone who will pray for you. Someone who will try their very best to be a role model for you not only in faith but in life. I can't promise I will be perfect. but I can promise I will always be there. Someone who is a constant in your life even if I am far away. The very same promise I made when I made it to your cousin Madysen Kay when she was batized...I now have two girls to help guide the ways for you both to LOVEthisLIFE.