Addison's Blessing Weekend

A few weeks back, Addison got blessed at church.  It was a super special weekend, and so lovely to have so many of our family and friends there for it.  Our congregation, as many of you know, here in Scotland is super teeny tiny...and so I'm pretty sure we quadrupled the size of it on Sunday 26th! I had certainly never seen so many people in our small building before!

It had me reminiscing back to Ella's blessing day.  Ella and Addi both got blessed around the 3 month old mark, and so it meant they could share the same dress which I was very excited about indeed! I couldn't find the same little pink cardigan from last time but a lovely friend of ours from church, Margo, had gifted us this knitted pink one and so I thought it would complete Addi's little outfit perfectly, along with that adorable little bow! 

She looked absolutely beautiful! and I had to do a little comparison shot to big sister in the same dress too...

How fun is that! 

It was a lovely service - you were blessed by your daddy, and joined by Grandad and Uncle Arne in the prayer circle.  The spirit was strong, and the love in the room for you as those words were spoken felt palpable - a love coming from your father in heaven, but also all of those friends and family in the room who had come to support you in your big day too. I wished I had thought to ask someone else to write down the blessing, because at some point I was struggling to read what I was writing through the tears I was shedding! 

So many lovely blessings were pronounced upon you but the line that stood out to me was that you will have a 'love for humankind, and for the beautiful world we live in and as you appreciate both these things much joy and peace will come into your life'. The two greatest blessings in my life are the family and friendships I have, and the joy I seek from the nature and beauty all around us - so it made me smile to hear these two things mentioned in your blessing too.  

We had three speakers - Rachael (your big sister's primary teacher) who gave a beautiful talk all about what a joy babies and children bring into your life, your Auntie Mel then spoke and based her talk on some counsel from one of the apostles in our church - Dieter F. Uchtdorf - about prioritising family above all other things in our lives, and then Margo (a good friend of ours who had travelled all the way from Lockerbie) spoke about names and the significance of names and gave a little insight into the Braithwaite family name that she had researched.  We sung some happy hymns, especially chosen by me, and then it was time for everyone to enjoy some food...and a lot of cake because that's how Jones family celebrations go!

I loved these hello world plates and bunting that I found online - I thought it was a perfect theme to officially welcome you into the world on this Sunday when you were given a name and a blessing and your name would officially be known on the records of the church.  

Also mint green and rose gold are two of my very favourite colours so I was thrilled with the colour scheme too! Granny made this cute little frame with this sweet quote...

and wowed us all with her floristry talents as usual.  I just loved this wild arrangement and the way it looked on the table. 

Granny had made all the platters of sandwiches and brought a whole heap of strawberries to balance out some of the sweetness going on! Marion, a friend from church, also made lots of delicious soups too.

Auntie Mara couldn't be there, so sent tons of cheesecakes in her absence - which I'm sure people were pretty happy about! In fact this amazing Nutella profiterole hazelnut cheesecake went so fast I didn't even get to try a piece! She works for The English Cheesecake Company, and so always knows how to make a sweet contribution!!

There was also a mango and passionfruit cheesecake, carrot cake and a toffee birthday cheesecake.  Along with that I had made Nutella marshmallows, coconut & caramel rocky road, Nutella & white chocolate brownies, Biscoff chocolate chip cookies, triple chocolate magic bars and 'top hats' for the kids.  It was quite the feast! 

My mom was also in charge of drinks, and had this cute photo poster printed out as well with all little memories of Addi featured on it.  

As well as sleeping through her whole actual blessing, Addi had a nice nap on Granny while everyone was scoffing cake too! She had clearly partied too hard! 

We had to snap this family shot before we left, to remember the whole gang who made the day so special.

We also had a lot of fun on the Saturday, and Mia and Auntie Mel wasted no time in getting in some snuggles.  They were the first to arrive from Yorkshire.  Shortly followed by Granny and Grandad from Shropshire and then Grandpa and Uncle Ja from Bedfordshire.  

It was a surprisingly sunny day...

 so Ella and Mia got some bouncing in the garden in!

and after that we headed out for an afternoon at Harestanes.  Uncle Ja was quite the hit! and was great at keeping all the little ones entertained! 

It was so cute seeing Ella and Mia love each other so much - like little peas in a pod following each other around, Mia especially patted the back of her wibbly wobble horse indicating that she wanted Ella to join her on it! 

The girls headed for ice cream from Mary's Dairy (and Mom was actually more excited about it than this picture makes out haha!) while the boys went and hiked up a hill to see a local monument, so there was something for everyone! 

The kids played at the park and then in the giant sandpit...

but the icing on the cake was finding this table tennis table! The Jones family are serious about table tennis - we even had one in our garden growing up where we made lots of happy memories! 

The boys got serious in a doubles tournament...

and Granny humoured Ellis who so desperately wanted to get involved! 

It was a lovely afternoon out, and an awesome weekend all round that won't be easily forgotten. 

Granny was also pleased to get the picture she has so longed for of her and her four grandchildren.  This was the best of a bad bunch of about 20 takes! We discovered that taking photos of a baby, a 2 year old, a 4 year old and a 5 year old is no easy feat! so we settled on this one in the end and called it good! Happy for these cousins to spend a whole weekend of fun together! 

Bring on the next time!