Happy Birthday, Reid!

Reid turned 8 this year! We celebrated with his friend, Zoni (Arizona) who turned 9 on 2/13. Since Reid and Zoni have several mutual friends, Marra Lynn and I decided to save ourselves some stress and combine their parties. We combined our safari + pirate party themes and ended up with a tropical pirate party-- it worked out perfectly.

Guests were created by Captain Zane and his Parrot

Marra Lynn baked an incredible, one-of-a-kind ship cake that spontaneously transformed into a shipwrecked ship! (I don't know if she'd be able to replicate it, though :) )

The boys got pirate head wraps and the girls got hibiscus hair clips. We played "Walk the Plank" and "The Boat Is Burning!" relay games-- boys vs. girls, of course. The girls won both games. :)
For me, the best part of this celebration is that Reid was surrounded not only by his brothers and sister, but these great friends who come from great families. Ironically, he doesn't go to school with any of them (in this small town there are four public elementary schools, plus one all-kindergarten school with 24 classes!) We go to church with most of these kids-- a few of them are neighbors. We are blessed to feel so at home here.

Reid will be baptized on March 5-- he is so excited for this special event in his life. We look forward to another celebration with both sets of grandparents in a few weeks!