princess party

We have been going to our church for almost 3 years now and have been blessed with an amazing church family.  One large part of our love for our church is that we are a part of a small group or home group for families.  A small group, for those of you that are not familiar with this concept (as we were not when we joined), is a group of couples (in our case) that meet on a consistent basis to study God's word together, to grow in our relationship with Christ and to provide fellowship.  Our small group has been a life line for our family.  We didn't know what we were missing all those years, but now that we do we couldn't function as well without them.  We joined our small group when we started going to our church.

We see our small group 3 weeks a month and our kids don't remember a time when we didn't see each other this often.  Our kids are great friends with all the kids in the other families.  We are beyond blessed by the relationships, friendships, fellowship and prayers of these families.

All of the kids just accept Grace for who she is and isn't.  No one makes a big deal about her differences, they just play with her as best she can.  It is truly amazing to see the kids try and include her in their play time.  One of the little girls had a birthday recently and invited Grace to the party.  The mom said, she asked for Grace by name. 

This was Grace's first birthday party and it was a princess party!  All the little girls either came dressed as their favorite princess or borrowed a princess costume at the party.  Grace got to dress as Ariel and she looked so cute in the costume.

I wasn't sure how she would do with putting on a costume but she really seemed to like it.  She kept looking at the dress and playing with it.  She loved the colors and she looked so cute!  She 'sort of' participated in the princess parade, she gets lots of practice at home following her brothers around the house.  All the rest of the party stuff went right by her, and it's okay she was having a great time watching all the little girls play and decorate their cupcakes.  For now, it was a big step that she was invited to a party and had fun being there.

All in all, her first princess party was a huge success.  I will always be grateful to the birthday girl and her mom for including my sweet girl in the party.  And to our church, for putting such a focus on community and fellowship.  We would be lost without the support and love from our small group.