We had a wonderful week celebrating Ellie's big milestone birthday.
12!!
She was super excited! She couldn't sleep the night before.
Our neighbors let us borrow these Young Women values banners.
Starting the day with streamers and presents!
Quiddler, a word game for our word girl.
The boys pitched in to buy her some headbands
since she likes wearing her hair long these days.
Sweet brothers!
This pink jacket was calling her name.
She has wanted to wear make up for a while (she has classes with older kids at school and with dance she has been around it quite a bit).
She got her own make up kit now that she's officially a young woman.
Watch out world.
Ellie was very excited to be able to go to the temple and do Baptisms for the dead for the first time, and since Rob had the day off for her birthday we thought we would take her on her birthday! We didn't realize that she couldn't get her recommend from the Bishopric until she was actually 12. When she had her Faith in God Interview they let us know, and Brother Shawn DeBurgh said he would come over on her birthday before work and interview her so we could go to the temple as planned. :) We made him omelets for breakfast.
Ellie's birthday breakfast request was for Crepe's and fresh whipped cream.
Yum!
One of her gifts all had to do with Young Women's.
I love this Willow Tree statue, it is titled, "Celebrate" and has blond hair like Ellie.
She's excited to start Personal Progress!
I love how beautiful these scripture heroine cards are.
Truly magnificent, inspiring art.
Ellie clothed in the Armor of God. ;)
She is a wonderful example for her little sister.
For lunch Ellie's restaurant pick was
OLIVE GARDEN.
She had never been there before, and she LOVES Italian food and cheesecake.
It was a very pleasant meal. We enjoyed time being together as a family. A sweet woman came up and complimented our beautiful family, which was a treat since here in California we get people counting our kids' heads and rolling their eyes more often.
Chicken Fettuccine a la Soulier.
They sang to Ellie when they brought her chocolate cheesecake.
She is looking too grown up!
After our family lunch outing, Ryan was willing to stay with the "younger" kids
(Trevor gets on our case when we say "little kids) and watch a movie while Ellie got to go to the temple for the first time with her Mom and Dad. Ryan is super responsible and does a great job with the kids.
Thanks Ry-O (That's Brenna's nickname for him).
It truly was a special, precious occasion!
Ellie posted on Instagram, "Hey guys, just wanted to let you know I changed the words of the Primary song to, I love to see the temple, I'm going there TODAY. So excited."
Rob's dad sent Ellie 8 family names, so she was able to be Baptized and Confirmed right away for 8 women on the Soulier line, most of them even sharing the Soulier last name.
Thank you, Grandpa Scott, for making this special opportunity possible for her.
We had fun with her hair for her birthday.
We did it in a lace, fish tail braid, her new favorite hair style.
A beautiful day to remember.
(I can't believe that she's almost as tall as me!)
In the evening we were all still full from the huge Olive Garden lunch, so we shared the half a strawberry cheesecake we brought home from Olive Garden and called it dinner.
I think the kids were pretty happy about that.
As the "younger" kids got ready for bed, Sister Tucker came over to welcome Ellie into the Young Women's program. She and I are over the Beehives, so I had to do my part and decorate our door while Ellie wasn't looking.
We are so excited for her to "BEE in BEEhives!"
Thank you, Andrea, for the wonderful welcome!
I'm excited to be able to be in Young Women's with Ellie!
I'm a lucky Mom.
Ellie was able to attend the Young Women activity the night before her birthday. We sang, "I Feel My Savior's Love" to a sister in our ward who was sent home from the hospital to pass away.
The spirit was very sweet.
Then we headed to the church to make invites and thank yous for the
Young Women Camp Fundraiser.
The Saturday after Ellie's birthday she invited a dozen girls over for a
STUDIO C PARTY!!
We are grateful for the wonderful friends Ellie has!
They were such a blast to have over, everyone had a really great time.
We started with pin the mustache on Jeremy.
Ellie had planned out the games and activities herself, it was super fun.
Then the girls decorated party favor bags.
After craftiness we headed up to put the newly finished Christmas
GAME ROOM
to good use!
(*Side note, we are never doing a house project for Christmas again! It was fun to plan and work on together, it was just stressful and demanding to have a deadline. We had the room painted, designed and built the storage entertainment center from Ikea -long story and 4 trips down there- bought wall paneling delivered from Home Depot that came with half of it damaged so we had to haul it to the store and reorder, got new bean bags, installed our own surround sound system- which took so long the cost of install would have probably been worth it, oh well, I have a new skill :), Rob built the new foosball table, and we hung the new big screen on the wall. We were up until 3:30am on Christmas Eve and didn't have cabinets on that fit and only 3/4 of the wall paneling up Christmas morning. It was pretty intense, but now that it's finished we are loving it!)
The girls would watch a Studio C clip and then play a game that went along with it.
"Would You Rather" and "Secret Handshake of Death" were two of the favorites.
The last game they played was the acting game, "FREEZE!"
It was a good thing we invited some Drama Queens. :)
Then we headed downstairs for some "Susa Weebers" Make-overs. ;)
The girls all got to pick a lipgloss to take home.
Chocolate cake and a make your own sundae bar. Yum.
More makeovers!
They all brought thoughtful gifts!
Jeremy's mustache mania compliments of Abby.
Cute friends!!
She's not an indian...she just got carried away with the make-over make up. ;)
Group hugs! It's so hard to say goodbye to your besties.
(Ellie says that words a thing).
The Sunday after her party she was called up in Sacrament meeting to get her Faith in God award and have it announced that she would be going into Young Womens.
All the the girls went into Primary sharing time at the beginning of Primary with flowers to kidnap her.
Our ward's tradition is to have them pick their favorite primary song to sing before leaving primary.
She picked, "A Child's Prayer."
Happy 12th Birthday Ellie!
