Rachel's eighth birthday kind of crept up on me, and this is a BIG birthday. In our church, eight is considered the age of accountability, meaning that children are old enough to discern right from wrong, and are therefore old enough to make the decision to be baptized. (We believe infants and children are automatically saved through the Atonement of Jesus Christ). So, in addition to planning a birthday and a birthday party (with friends during a pandemic!), we also needed to plan a baptism (during a pandemic, with ever-changing rules).
Step one: Find the right dress. My friend owns a clothing boutique that specializes in temple and baptism clothing, so I took Rachel there to pick out her dress. I really didn't want a mini bridal gown, which so many girls pick, and I liked that the dresses in her shop were much less formal. This one was my favorite:
But Rachel decided on this one, and I have to say that she made an excellent choice.
We went straight from buying the dress over to the temple to take her baptism photos. It was a windy evening with a few flurries in the air. In other words, it was freezing! She wore her thickest nude-colored tights and booties, but she still was really, really cold. I tried to pump her up, saying, "You're a January baby! The cold is nothing to you! You can do it!" Unfortunately, after about 1 minute, she would be too cold to even smile. We'd run back to the car, with the heater blasting to get warm again, and then head back out for one more minute of shooting. I promised her some hot chocolate at home, but after a few rough attempts, we decided to finish the shoot at home.
You can't tell from this photo though. Some of my fellow photographers call this Beyonce wind, and I think she hid the fact that she is freezing pretty well.
She was a lot better at smiling back at our house.
I'll show you more of these photos when we talk about her baptism, which took place in February. This post is really about her birthday, and we just happened to take her pictures the week of her birthday. Here she is on her last night of being seven.
After she went to bed, Brian and I wrapped her presents, put up the banner,
And put some balloons outside her door.
The next day, was her birthday!! Brian and I made her cake while she was at school. We tried to take inspiration from Disney's Descendants.
Gabe helped too.
She was so excited by her presents!
Anna Leigh got so many new outfits and accessories. Rachel got stuff to dress up like Evie for her party.
Rachel picked Chubby's for dinner.
After Chubby's, it was time to eat that cake.
The next day, we threw her Disney's Descendants inspired party. Here she is in her new Evie inspired outfit.
First order of business: A tea party.
We had to have a dance party.
And a "steal the wand" game. I made this wand special for this game. I tried really hard to imitate the one from the movie. Dowel + hot glue+ flower buttons +fake gems + spray paint:
All for this game (essentially a glorified Red Light, Green Light game):
Rachel kept getting out run, so Brian decided to help her.
Thanks to Covid, we had to keep our numbers small, and we tried to limit it to just girls she was already regularly hanging out with. This meant four girls from our neighborhood and two from our last neighborhood. We were so sad not to be able to invite more, especially Skyler. This is the first birthday party of hers that he's missed.
One of our good friends who is mom to one of the girls that came offered to take Gabe and Michael for the afternoon. These girls were so calm and non-crazy that we let the party go on for hours after it was supposed to actually end. They kept playing so well together and making bracelets and necklaces. Brian and I kept looking at each other going, "Wow, girls are so much more calm and quiet than boys!"
This is what happened when the boys arrived:
We had a family party on Sunday after church, which Skyler was able to come to. And for some reason, I didn't take any pictures of our awesome family guests--Nana & Papa and Lea's crew.
We sure love this sweet girl of ours. She is so kind hearted, so creative, and such an essential person in our family. We hope you had an amazing eighth birthday, SweetPea!
No comments:
Post a Comment