"New Family" Friend Shower

On Friday night we had a small group of friends over for dessert to celebrate the impending arrival of Camilla. Much like our Family Shower held last sunday, it was a casual affair with little agenda and lots of good food.

I spent all of Friday afternoon baking treats and doing my best with what little decorations I had. It was fun to put out Camillas pretty things and show them off to the girls who used their high voices to express their excitement! :)

 I was thinking the other night about the practicality of having a child raised by a village and what that would look like. I thought it would mean the children would always get the best out of their caregivers (who ever they might be). There would always be something to do and always something to learn. A wealth of knowledge and experience could be taught to them from a whole range of people.

One of the main advantages of going to a good church is the ability to "do life together". You hear that phrase thrown around a lot and basically it means that you do more than just attend a service on a sunday - you make friends, develop mentors, teach others and get involved. Church go'ers become home go'ers and soon they are apart of your everyday life not just your Sunday life. I think our church is great at doing that and I love and adore all of the friends we have made through the years. I consider our church to be an extension of our families and am thankful for every person just the same.

Camilla will be raised in that family too. She will get the best of everyone. She will learn and be involved with a whole range of people. She will always have interesting conversations and learn from such different people.

I consider it a real privilege to be involved in a "village" like this and I know that as much as we are excited about meeting her, we also have so many family members and extended family members excited too. I wanted her to know this when she is older so I asked our friends at our little party to write her a letter or a prayer that she will be given when she's older amongst the scrap book we are making her. They took this so seriously and wrote such beautiful things. All of them had me shedding tears. Afterwards I was so pleased I asked them to do this. Camilla is well loved.

As I was taking photos Sophia thought it would be a great idea to do a "Brady Bunch" pose... It took me ten photos to get this. Mostly I just love Perrys face in this (Front Left)

We were telling them about the Buggy we purchased this week and Graeme quickly seized the opportunity to pull it out - complete with demonstrations of undoing it (with one hand) and off roading sound effects down the hall way. They said he should sell tupperware he was so enthusiastic and convincing.

I had to take this last photo as my camera was running out of batteries. Graeme loves to be in the center of everything going on. I noticed he was the only one sitting on the floor in the middle, surrounded by people and holding 3 simultaneous conversations at once. Typical.

It was a fun time and once again my happy cup was over flowing. We love our friends and family and are super stoked that Camilla gets to grow up around such amazing and caring people :)