“The child grew and became strong in spirit”  -Luke 1 : 80

There is a quote that says something about our lives being a gift from God and what we do with them being our gift back to Him.  That is just how I feel about my children.  They are amazing blessings, gifts given from God’s pure love.  As a mother, I thank God for my abundant blessings in the things I do to bring bring my kids to God.  Our oldest just had his First Holy Communion yesterday!  It was really sentimental for me to see him receive this gift and to reflect on how strong he is growing in his faith.  He inspires me with his kindness, generosity, and loving heart at such a young age.  His empathy is astounding!  His prayers aren’t just about himself or his family.  He prays thanks to God for so many things, he prays about the social and political issues that he feels are important, and he always prays for people in need.  When he hears about sad events, he doesn’t just pray for the victims of violence and their families, but he’ll also pray for the violent offenders to change their lives and turn their hearts to God!  That is more love and kindness than some adults can muster in those tough times.  I am very proud of who he is and who he is becoming.  There truly are no words to say how full my heart is and how grateful I am to God for my kids.  I remember my own First Communion day and how special it was to me, and I know yesterday was just as memorable and awesome for our son!  Thank you to all of our family and friends who were there and made the day a terrific celebration!  I wanted to share just a few quick pictures from this blessed day (and links to where we found things for the party since that was helpful to me in my own planning).  I removed our son’s name from the personalized items before posting those pictures.

We had favor bags for the kids with “Jesus Loves Me” notepads, pencils, stretchy bracelets and candy cross bracelets, blue and gold tokens with religious symbols, and a few other small trinkets.  We also had personalized bubbles, personalized holy cards, and plantable wildflower crosses and chalices with a card I made that had instructions for planting and the message, “May these seeds and the blooms they bring remind you of this special day.  God’s blessings and our thanks for sharing in our joy and being with us today!”

This was the food table before we picked up all the platters of food, most of which was from Publix.  We had a brunch with danishes, croissants, muffins, donuts, bagels, scones, fruits and cheeses, sandwiches, and wraps.

We picked party colors to match the First Communion party supplies and decorations we bought from Party City.  We used blue, purple (as in grapes – for the wine), and gold (they used yellow for wheat, but gold was close enough to match and worked because of the gold chalice).  I bought candy in those colors from Amazon, Oriental Trading Company, Dollar Tree, and Party City and we set up a candy buffet.  There were personalized swirl pops, candy sticks, licorice, rock candy, gold chocolate candies, blue and gold mints, and juices, and then scattered on the table were air heads, other lollipops, and toffees.

The cake was decorated with an edible sugar chalice, host, and rosary.  We also had cupcakes with fondant toppers from So Sweet Favors on Etsy.  The toppers were blue circles with a gold chalice and a white cross on the chalice.

The Mass was of course the highlight of the day.  Our church is amazing!  The people that give their time and talents are wonderful.  All of our priests and deacons were there to celebrate the Mass, and there will be 200 kids making their First Communion this weekend and next!  Our son wore the same jacket that Jason wore for his own First Communion.  I love that!  He looked way too big in his outfit, complete with lapel pin and tie clip!

Thanks to Kyle for taking these pictures of the Communion so Jason and I could be present for and focused on our son!

Thanks also to Father Bill for taking time for pictures during his busy week!  We did the “formal” First Communion pictures a couple days before.

One of his gifts was a First Communion rosary which the priest blessed that day.

This is our special family Bible and I loved using it for these pictures.

Our son loves drawing and is becoming more and more interested in art so we had a caricature artist from Childlike Productions at his party.  It turned out that the artist also draws comics, which our son loves to draw!  Not only did he do the caricatures, but after he gave our son a quick drawing lesson.  After the party the kids spent the rest of the day posing for caricatures with one another.

There was a game and crafts table set up with games like Bible Taboo, Bible Mad Gab, and a few religious inspired card games.  For crafts we had Bible story coloring and activity books with crayons and a First Communion hanging cross craft.

After eating and cutting the cake, Jason led everyone in a toast to our son, and we embarrassed him by singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” (though I know he secretly loved it!)  It was a day he will remember forever!  God is good!