All About Aubrey!!

This post is all about Aubrey and her birthday and baptism. She turned 8 on February 10th. She's still our fancy "girly-girl," and she loves that I call her that. She loves to curl her hair, wear dresses, and accessorize. She decided to wear one of her favorite, new dresses to school on her actual birthday, so here she is.
Happy Birthday Aubrey!

Aubrey's birthday was on a Friday this year, so we had a birthday party for her the next day with all of her friends. She wanted to do something big and fun like Rockin' Jump or Bobo's, but she also wanted to invite over 15 friends. I told her she had to either narrow her friends down to just a few to do something big like that, or she'd have to have a party at home if she wanted to invite everyone. She decided on the party at home. We had a make-over, movie, emoji party and here are all her friends after we did makeup and nails. Audrey Kasallis came over to help me do nails, and Abby and her friend Claire did the makeup.

The emoji theme was mostly for decorations and party favors, and we had fun finding things to use. We had balloons and pillows to decorate the house and everyone went home with an emoji cup filled with goodies like emoji bubble gum, emoji lip gloss, and an emoji stamp. We did yellow-frosted cupcakes topped with the emoji bubble gum balls as her birthday cake. We watched the movie Trolls, ate pizza, and opened presents. Everyone had a lot of fun, but with that many girls squealing in the house, it was nice and quiet once we got our house back. However, Aubrey had a blast, so it was all worth it. 

We also celebrated with family (Grandma and Grandpa Black and Kasallis's) on Sunday and Aubrey chose a carrot cake for that celebration. She opened a few more presents and got to enjoy another day of being the center of attention.

We chose the next weekend, after her birthday, to do her baptism, so Aubrey was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on February 18, 2017. As we prepared for that day, I made a dress for Aubrey using her exact specifications. I knew she'd want it fancy, so I even tried convincing her to just let us buy one online, but she really wanted me to make it.

She wanted her dress to be like the baptism dress I made for Abby, but we added some extra "bling" by adding a trim to the sash, not making the bow and using a fancier overlay fabric and ribbon. She loved it! And she loved telling everyone who saw it what was the same as Abby's dress, and what was different. It was pretty funny. We had two different photo shoots once her dress was complete. We did a quick photo shoot at the end of our street because the light was good, and these were some of my favorites. However, we didn't use any of them because Aubrey really wanted her hair curly and we didn't have time to do that before this first photo shoot.

The second photo shoot we did was at the end of another street in our neighborhood that looks over the valley and I loved how those pictures turned out. Aubrey loved the fact that her hair was curly and some of the pictures showed off her fancy new white shoes. These two (and the one two sections up) were the pictures we had printed and framed to be on display at the baptism and in her program.

 

The actual baptism was held Saturday evening on the 18th. Both sets of grandparents were there and a lot of friends from the wards. Aubrey was actually sick earlier in the week and missed two days of school. It even passed on to Tessa and Taryn, but luckily by the time Saturday morning came, everyone was back to normal. Unfortunately, because we had been sick, Scott and Nevla decided to stay home with their babies so they wouldn't catch any sicknesses, but they had originally planned on coming. Here's a picture of Aubrey in front of the font and with Tyler, who baptized her.

We took a lot of pictures after the program. We loved that all the grandparents were there for the weekend. We ate at Olive Garden afterwards and enjoyed being together with family.

 

Here's a picture of our whole family. Aubrey asked her primary teacher, Sis. Bonilla, to give the talk on the Holy Ghost. She was happy to do it and did a great job. Aubrey wanted a picture with her too, which I thought was a great idea. Sis. Bonilla's son loved Aubrey too as you can tell from the picture.

And one final picture with all the family together. We're so proud of Aubrey and her decision to be baptized. It was a great day and a great event. We love that girl!

And since this is a post all about Aubrey, I might as well add one more picture even though it happened 6 weeks after her birthday and baptism. After a visit to our orthodontist, it was decided that Aubrey needed an expander because her upper jaw is too narrow. Since she was going to have to wear this appliance anyway, they also added what they call a tongue crib to keep her from sucking her thumb. She's now only been wearing it for one week, but she's getting used to it, eating normal foods again, and talking without too much slurring and lisping. She'll be wearing it for at least 5 weeks, but she's been a good sport about it. She complains the most at night when she's trying to fall asleep about missing her thumb, but she's doing really well and handling the situation like a champ. I just wanted to make sure this memory is preserved in our family books forever! :) We love you Aubrey!