Anna's Friendship Party

"To those who wait, time opens every door" ~ Chinese proverb

We had that sweet proverb on Anna's welcome/adoption announcement.  It is suited well for this post. 

On Sunday Anna had a sweet, little, Valentine party with her first school friends.  First.  Yes, first.  It took a while but she never really connected with a group of girls at her school.  Sure, she had special friends... Leah her wonderful friend she met at church when they were just babies.  They share a special connection for sure, and I know they'll be friends for life. 

And then there's Lily.  They spent their first year together in an orphanage waiting for a family.  And now they are just a short car ride away from each other.  I am grateful for such a God given friendship; one that shares their homeland and first year.  Lily was there when I couldn't be.  She'll always be special to me.

But Anna never had a close friend at school.  We were okay with that, really.  She was well liked, and spent her recesses with different girls.  But she never talked about anyone.  She never wanted a playdate (with a school friend) and I didn't push. 

This third grade year was different.  She started talking about these girls from the first week.  And she's STILL talking about their friendship.  In fact each night at family prayer time when it's her turn to say what she's grateful for that day she often mentioned these friends. 

So yesterday was her first school friend playdate.  Of course I turned it into a party with a Valentine theme.  And it turned out sweeter than I thought it could.  I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Thank you to Pam who gave me these great ideas! 

The girls painted little heart boxes and frames. (The frames were my way of getting a mini photo shoot into the playdate. I promised the girls a picture for their frames)




I decorated the table as pretty as I could. I used my special table cloth and all of the pink I could find.



With lots of Valentine candy


The girls decorated cupcakes.






And had sparkling pink lemonade in my grandmothers punch cups.




And then they let me take these pictures of them. I did all of these in a matter of 2 minutes...












And yes, they're all Asian... how awesome is that!