The Best Birthday Ever!

We parked at the Joseph Smith building, so of course we had to get a shot with the prophet!


A couple of weeks ago our family went to temple square to watch my niece perform with her with her choir. While we were there we decided to stop by the Beehive House. Jacee fell in love with it! She decided right then and there she wanted to go there for her birthday. (Wahoo! Up until then it was going to be a glamour party - 3rd one - with her entire 1st grade class.) So, I told her she could pick three friends and we would go! (A cousin serendipitously showed up so she got to come too.)

This was one of my favorite shots. All the girls walked into the Beehive house and sat down and were all acting very "ladyish". The Sr. Couple and sister missionaries just oohed and awed over what a darling group of girls. One asked if they were all sisters - give me strength!! We were the only ones there so we got to go on the tour all by ourselves.

Here they are with the Sr. Couple and the Sisters that gave them the tour. One sister was from Mexico and one was from Mongolia. Some of the girls had a hard time understanding them, it was fun watching them try to tailor the tour into "Little Girl - English".

There is an old fashioned wall clock and calendar so I had to snap a quick picture showing Jacee by the Tuesday, December 22.

After the tour, we got to go have dessert at the Lion House.

It was fun to see which dessert each girl picked. They also got a truffle bar - Jacee's favorite. Here we sang Happy Birthday and opened presents. Jacee was in 7th Heaven!

First stop on Temple Square - the reflecting pool. It was snowing, but wasn't too cold. I thought we wouldn't be long - but the girls LOOOVED everything - so we just kept going and going.

I forgot how much energy young girls can have. Here they are twirling under the HUGE red pine tree at the entrance to temple square. People kept smiling at our group and at me. Not sure if it was because they were pretty cute or they had sympathy for me trying to control five energetic little girls all hopped up on sugar from yummy Lion House cake!

This was a pretty tender moment. I asked the girls if they wanted to touch the temple. What? Can we do that? were the responses. Funny, how teaching moments come when you don't expect them...so we talked about going inside to be sealed there someday.

Growing up, we attended conference every six months, so it was weird for me that this was the first time my daughter had ever been in the tabernacle.

The did think the statue of Christ was neat, but like the mural of the stars on the wall and the escalator the best!

And the crowning moment. The all got to stand on the bride podium and get their picture with the temple in the background. I took a picture of each of them individually and told them when they come back to get married they will get a picture there in their wedding dresses so they should practice now.

I'm so glad Jacee wanted to do this. Just a warning - I'm going to sound pretty cheezy right now. It was special to watch these girls roam around temple square, learn about Brigham Young, ooh and ahh at the temple and talk about getting married there, and just enjoy being on sacred ground. I can't believe how my daughter has grown and how far we have come as a family from the time she was born. I sure love that girl!