Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Brazilian 1st Birthday Party

I told you it would be nothing exciting, but here goes with my first "journal entry". In Brazil, the 1st birthday is a big one, along with the 15th birthday for girls. Well, we got to go to our first Brazilian 1 aninho aniversario festa and it didn't disappoint. We knew when we received all 6 invitations that it would be something spectacular. The picture below shows the invitation. It was adorable! It was just this cute little box and we all six got one.
When we took the top off of the box, it popped open with this cute green with white polka dot inside with little ladybugs all over it. The center ladybug is even a 3D type bug. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it was so cute.The inside of course just gave the details of when and where the party was. Fofinho, neh? We waited after getting these cute little invitations for 3 weeks for party time. So, we were ready and excited to practice some Portuguese. Let me tell you a little about the party and then I will add some pictures. When we arrived they had red and white balloons everywhere and ladybugs on the sidewalk all the way up to the door, through the house and to the backyard where the festivities would actually take place. Everything was red, white and black with the ladybug theme - the cake, the treats, the sweets, the napkins, the tables, everything fit the theme of the party. Too cute! We first got there and sat down to be greeted by the waiters wanting our drink order. Remember I said that this was a 1 YEAR OLD birthday party! Waiters! Ok, then they brought around a little tray for every table with all kinds of little salty snacks. And when we ran out, they brought more. Then they brought around these cute little hot dogs, and even the wrapper for the hot dog had a ladybug on it. See below:Preston ate about 5 hot dogs and this was after all the little salty snacks which he ate way too many of. Not to mention all the guarana that he had already drank. Then there was lots of talking and mingling and chasing babies. We were there for almost 4 hours and no English was spoken. I felt that from a language point of view, it was good. We talked plenty, we didn't just sit there. We found a great couple that was so kind and so patient with us, Luciano and Marlise. We are supposed to have dinner with them after the holidays are over. We are looking forward to this! Ok, in this backyard the family has a pool and a beautifully shaded area that was just decorated to the tee. As I was enjoying the tropical trees in the yard, I noticed one of them was a pomegranate tree. They told me to come back and get as many as I want when they are ripe.
I was fascinated by the pomegranate. You know there are just some things that this Mississippi girl is not used to seeing and this was my thing for the day! The babies loved the pool and this dolphin that spit water. I was afraid that one of them was going to fall in, but Preston was the only one that got wet that day and I was the one that pushed him in. He liked it so don't feel sorry for him!Then we sang to the birthday girl, ate cake, ate chocolate covered strawberries, ate more treats and talked a lot more. It was fun and a great experience. We had heard that the first birthday was sometimes as big as a wedding reception and this one could have been a wedding reception. A neat little side note to this party was that there were 3 sets of twins there. Ok enough already, I know, I will quit boring you now, but here is a picture of the birthday girl, Bruna, and her cake.Isn't she precious? Her family speaks no English whatsoever and they are so sweet to us and are so very patient with us as we struggle to make our Portuguese words make sense. We are thankful for our new Brazilian friends and ask that you pray with us that the Lord will nurture these friendships and show us how to be a light to them even if we can't speak as fluently as we would like.

2 comments:

Heathahlee said...

Wow! They really do go all out! That cake is beautiful! I'm so glad y'all had a good time. Thanks for filling us in!

Sherri said...

Good morning from Tennessee! What a party. I bet that cake was great, what a party. That was great to get to practice your language.