Lucy & Baptism Ideas

So this is Lucy just a few days after her eighth birthday. I snapped these shots of her in our backyard a few weeks before her baptism in October. She is wearing my Grandma Orchard's vintage pearls. Cool right????

In case you aren't familiar with our culture, a baptism is the Mormon equivalent of a Jewish Bar Mitzvah, or a Catholic First Communion. It is the recognition that the child is now old enough to distinguish between right and wrong, and they are starting with a clean slate. It's also the chance to hold a big party!

I searched far and wide for the perfect dress, (cuz all you girls know it's ALWAYS about the dress). I finally found some really great choices at J. Crew (Crewcuts is their awesome kids line). I ordered the dress online, and the second it arrived we ran in and opened the package. It was beautifully packaged, hanging on a wooden hanger, and inside this perfect miniature garment bag. The dress is cream shantung silk, and we tried it on immediately. The dress is the sweetest little shape, with a side zipper. We zipped her in and then stood back to have our "TA-DAH" moment..... but IT LOOKED AWFUL!!! The dress was sort of bunchy, and gaping in strange places. I could not believe it! That dress was so spendy, and it had come in such a nice package. I have to be honest, it was a good life lesson. Remember this Lucy, sometimes something beautiful and shiny on the outside is really a big dud on the inside.....but I digress.

At this point we only had a few weeks until the baptism, and it had taken me several weeks to find this dress. It was also much too late in the game to be able to have a dress made, so I would HAVE to find something else off the rack.

I didn't return the dress immediately, because I just wasn't sure what to do. As the days wore on, I knew I had to have Lucy's picture taken so that I would have something to send out in the invitation. I decided to use the J. Crew dress for the pictures, and I figured I could just pin it up in the back to look decent for the pictures, then I could return it. Well, we tried on the dress again, and this time as soon as we zipped it up I gasped. The dress was BEAUTIFUL!!! What in the world could have happened? I guess trying on the dress BACKWARDS the first time was not such a good idea!?*!?!

I made Lucy's headband with the plain plastic kind you find at the craft store. I wrapped fabric around the whole thing, then hot glue-gunned the ends. Someday I will post a tutorial for making the fabric flowers for the top.

I glued in tulle netting and ribbon, and then glued the flowers and pearl embellishments to the top.

All the decorations, invitations, and Lucy's outfit coordinated with our cream and aqua color scheme. Her sweater and shoes came from Nordstrom.

All the photos were different prints (from Costco of course) of the shots I had taken in the backyard.

I made the frames out of the $1.00 kind from Michael's that are unfinished. I decoupaged different scrapbook papers and embellishments, so that each frame was unique.

(All in keeping with the color scheme of course).

It was October, so there were lots of white pumpkins around. (That seems strangely inappropriate now). I think anything white would be pretty in the hurricane though.

I wish I had pictures of the food. I served several varieties of soup, salads, desserts, etc. The big crowd pleaser though, had to be the gourmet grilled cheese. I am not sure if I would attempt that again for that large of a crowd, because it felt like I spent the whole party flipping grilled cheese, (hence the reason I have no pictures) but they were DE-LISH! Even my little 91 year old granny ate like three sandwiches!

Here's how you make em':

• really good loaf of pre-sliced (thin) sourdough bread


• 3 varieties of white and yellow cheese-your favorites, but gourmet like Gouda, swiss, etc., mixed in with cheddar are best


• enough butter on the outside of the bread to get a good crunch

I really like the wide loaves of sourdough, so once the sandwiches are grilled, I cut them in half, and serve them on a platter. These go so fast the platter is literally never full.

Just FYI, having a large flat cook-top helps too.

And there you have it. It was a really great special day. And I just have to say (since this is also my journal), my favorite part of the whole day was in the dressing room, when Lucy came out of the water, and just her and I were in the dressing room getting her ready. I have never been so honored to be her Mom.
I love you Lucy Lu!