I love to celebrate. I adore a party. And party planning? My jam.
I’ve known several moms who loathe birthday parties, the crazy planning and chaos-control they require. Not me. I peruse party blogs for fun in my spare time– though, admittedly, I’ve already meticulously planned out the girl’s birthday parties for the next three years. I’ve hosted countless baby/bridal showers, Superbowls, Christmases, and backyard barbeques. In our home church I happily served on the Special Events team and was the Hospitality Team leader for a Women’s ministry. It never seemed a bit like work… Christ-followers call this “serving in their giftedness”.
Ten days after our third daughter was still-born in 2008, we went ahead as planned with Center Sister’s Happy Birthday Hoedown. My belly still swollen, wrought with grief, the party became a welcome distraction and pocket of joy in the midst of suffering.
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We’re approaching the home stretch of our girls’ birthday season, and as Firstborn’s April event is pretty much planned, decor/invites/favors purchased, I’m putting the finishing touches on Center Sister’s party in June.
The following are snapshots of a few of the girls’ past birthday parties… I obviously adore a good theme, and often even ask guests to dress up accordingly.
Firstborn’s Birthday Bootcamp
Center Sister’s Bigtop Birthday
Cinco de Daughter {5th birthday fiesta}
Aloha Birthday Luau for Center Sister
Lights, Camera, Birthday {Movie Theater Party}
Center Sister’s Wilderness Explorer Birthday {compromise on a Dora theme}
Astronaut Interplanetary Party
Ballerina Birthday
These days I get equally excited over another variety of celebration: Airport parties.
Our first is tomorrow! We’ll be welcoming home an adoptive family and their baby boy from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Meeting adoptive families at the airport is a great way to show your love and support and see the new precious child that you’ve prayed and dreamed about with them for months. Airport parties are also practical, as typically after arriving home families go straight into Cocoon-mode and one might not see them for several months.
It dawned on me that we’ll likely have several airport parties on our social calendar over the next year or so, as we walk alongside so many other adoptive families. I also realized that our friends in Oregon should have their airport party welcoming home their twin girls (also from the Congo) while we’re there visiting in a couple of weeks! I’m over the moon about this one. They have been waiting a LONG time to bring those girls home, and since we now live 14 hours away I had resigned myself to the fact that it’d be some time before I’d get to see them in person. What a thrill that we’ll now be there to joyfully greet them at the airport! The time and date just happened to work out perfectly.
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