I'll have to do a Halloween post now that Trick-or-Treating has did done gone but before I tackle that I've got to knock the naming ceremony synopsis out...
Last weekend was all about Miss Clementine. She's been home from Ethiopia for a year and a half (how is that possible?) but I was little slow on getting around to arranging her naming ceremony. For our kids, since they're not Jewish by birth, a bris (or a naming ceremony for girls) plus a little dip in the mikvah, officially welcomes them into the Jewish faith.
Clementine's shindig was MUCH easier to arrange than Gabriel's since there was no outpatient surgery to coordinate. The rabbi met Kevin, Mom and me at the mikvah on Sunday morning for some prayers and a little dunk...
And then after we'd dried off, it was time to party.
Proof that we need to renovate/expand the kitchen. Everyone hanging out in the hallway JUST OUTSIDE the galley kitchen:-) What is it about parties and kitchens?
The rabbi led some lovely prayers in our living room, officially bestowing Clementine with the Hebrew name Sara--after my mother.
I forgot to warn the grands and great-grands that they had a reading assignment. Considering, they recovered nicely.
My aunt Cissy read a blessing on behalf of my Dad, which was perfect.
It's such a funny thing doing a ceremony like this with a child old enough to possibly even remember it. Clementine kept calling it her birthday party. We'd correct her and she'd say, "Oh! I forgot! It's my CEREMONY!" Very cute.
I tried not to overdo everything. That being said, I totally overdid everything. I bought so much deli meat and we had so many fixings that we ate sandwiches ALL of last week, just trying to keep the food from going to waste.
The biggest splurge was this cake. Pearl's Cupcakes made it for us using this source photo as inspiration.
It was to die for, and too beautiful for words. Red velvet on the top and plain jane for the bottom layer. All with some delicious buttercream icing. Yum, yum, and yum.
Lest you think the G-man was totally neglected, his much bigger and cooler cousin showed up so all was well with the universe. Especially since the button-down shirt we made him wear for the occasion practically matched the one Eli was sporting. Gabriel couldn't have been more pleased to hang in his shadow for the afternoon.
We instituted a strict no-gift policy (ya know, just to keep Clementine grounded), which everyone promptly ignored. She thought that was pretty cool.
Instead we asked people to consider a donation to the Tesfa Foundation, which supports a number of schools in rural Ethiopia. We thought those gifts were pretty cool, too.
At the end of the day, we were just tremendously grateful that so many people came to witness Clementine step into a new name.
She's got more names than most little girls her age but we think she wears each and every one pretty darned well.
Last weekend was all about Miss Clementine. She's been home from Ethiopia for a year and a half (how is that possible?) but I was little slow on getting around to arranging her naming ceremony. For our kids, since they're not Jewish by birth, a bris (or a naming ceremony for girls) plus a little dip in the mikvah, officially welcomes them into the Jewish faith.
Clementine's shindig was MUCH easier to arrange than Gabriel's since there was no outpatient surgery to coordinate. The rabbi met Kevin, Mom and me at the mikvah on Sunday morning for some prayers and a little dunk...
And then after we'd dried off, it was time to party.
Proof that we need to renovate/expand the kitchen. Everyone hanging out in the hallway JUST OUTSIDE the galley kitchen:-) What is it about parties and kitchens?
The rabbi led some lovely prayers in our living room, officially bestowing Clementine with the Hebrew name Sara--after my mother.
I forgot to warn the grands and great-grands that they had a reading assignment. Considering, they recovered nicely.
My aunt Cissy read a blessing on behalf of my Dad, which was perfect.
It's such a funny thing doing a ceremony like this with a child old enough to possibly even remember it. Clementine kept calling it her birthday party. We'd correct her and she'd say, "Oh! I forgot! It's my CEREMONY!" Very cute.
I tried not to overdo everything. That being said, I totally overdid everything. I bought so much deli meat and we had so many fixings that we ate sandwiches ALL of last week, just trying to keep the food from going to waste.
The biggest splurge was this cake. Pearl's Cupcakes made it for us using this source photo as inspiration.
It was to die for, and too beautiful for words. Red velvet on the top and plain jane for the bottom layer. All with some delicious buttercream icing. Yum, yum, and yum.
Lest you think the G-man was totally neglected, his much bigger and cooler cousin showed up so all was well with the universe. Especially since the button-down shirt we made him wear for the occasion practically matched the one Eli was sporting. Gabriel couldn't have been more pleased to hang in his shadow for the afternoon.
We instituted a strict no-gift policy (ya know, just to keep Clementine grounded), which everyone promptly ignored. She thought that was pretty cool.
Instead we asked people to consider a donation to the Tesfa Foundation, which supports a number of schools in rural Ethiopia. We thought those gifts were pretty cool, too.
At the end of the day, we were just tremendously grateful that so many people came to witness Clementine step into a new name.
She's got more names than most little girls her age but we think she wears each and every one pretty darned well.
