Relief Society Birthday Dinner

Okay, I can't take much credit for how well this event turned out, but I want to blog about it anyway because it was so FUN!  

Tonight we celebrated the birthday of Relief Society.  In planning the celebration we figured the best thing we could do would be to have an actual birthday party.  We printed invitations and mailed them to the 90 or so women listed in the branch directory.  Not that many people attended, but at least they knew they were invited. (This was the most work I did for the party. I didn't want to commit to doing anything in case Baby C decided to make an early appearance.)

 Our amazing RS President found this totally cool birthday themed dinner ware.

 We even had balloons to make it feel like a party.

 The food was mostly from Sam's Club and Costco.  We had little deli sandwiches, chips, veggie trays, and fruit salad.

 The theme for the night was "Celebrate You."  So we asked each sister to bring something that represented one of their talents.

 I "borrowed" this idea from a Birthday Dinner that we did in my married student ward. It's fun to see what talents people have.

 We had the Stake RS President talk about ways to "Celebrate You."  She suggested things like:

• Think of 30 or 40 things that you love and then incorporate them into your daily life
• List things you like about yourself
• Celebrate small victories every day 
• Look in the mirror and tell yourself "I love you"
• Don't discount complements that people give you

I really liked her talk.  I helped pick the theme, but I really needed to hear what she said.

We also had a white elephant gift exchange.  The RS President read a story that had all our names in it plus the words right and left.  We had to pass the gifts which ever direction she said.  It was really fun.

 Our Branch President's wife ended up with an actual White Elephant.

 I had lots of fun at the activity.  It was nice to not have to worry about anything.  I mainly hung out in the back and laughed with some of the Sr Missionaries.  I love these women so much.  Even though most of them have been married for years, have raised children into adulthood, and are now grandparents they don't try to smother me with advise.  Instead we are just friends.

Charlotte and Lydia were in the nursery because Brandon and some other guys were there in case any other kids needed to be tended.  No other kids came so it was just the girls.  At the end of the night they each got a couple balloons.

 We tied the strings to their belt loops so the balloons wouldn't float away.  The girls had fun running around with their balloons following them.

It was such a great night.  I just want to finish with a huge thank you to all the people who did the work that I couldn't do.  You really made the night wonderful and I appreciate everything you did.