Saturday 8/6/2016 was Isabella’s christening at Herrakra kyrka in Sweden. It was a wonderful day that we will never forget! The whole family participated in welcoming Isabella into the Christian faith – and we didn’t even need any official staff since we have so many church-workers in my extended family. Isabella’s great uncle Figge is a Bishop and he beautifully performed the ceremony. Great grandma Kerstin acted as organist while morfar Dan took care of all “odds and ends” such as making sure all the supplies were in place. Will and Ben poured the water into the font and wiped Isabella’s head after the christening. Dan, Sofia and Chuck each did a reading while my sisters and I played and sang a Bob Dylan song (this time with almost no crying!!!) and Isabella herself was exemplary as usual, and didn’t cry much at all (she did however squeeze in a quick nap on Daddy’s chest.) She wore a BEAUTIFUL gown sewn by great grandma Ruth!

After the ceremony we welcomed our 40 something guests to my childhood home for a super fun reception. It started with aunt Rebecka’s homemade punch and appetizers, before we were welcome to hit “Isabella’s Italian Buffet” which included pesto spaghetti, pizza, sauteed veggies, fresh Parmesan, herb baked salmon, air cured ham, Italian bread and more – almost entirely cooked by Isabella’s awesome mormor Charlotte! I totally forgot to snap a photo because I was so eager to EAT! And of course, since I just can’t ever half-ass my parties, there had to be a few fun activities. We had a party book with fun facts about each guest, an Isabella themed crossword, and a coloring page of Izzy (she was made into both a smurf and Super Mario, among other things.) We also had a guest book painting, named “Livet ar ett smorgasbord & The world is your oyster” onto which each guest were instructed to write their name and something that they thought was the best thing in the world. This was so Izzy will have an entire canvas filled with loveliness!

A great time was had by all, and I loved catching up with friends and family. We received so many incredible gifts which was almost a little overwhelming. But the best gift of all was to be together with family and to be able show the boys some of my family’s culture. I think they really had a great time too, showing off doing magic tricks, playing tag with my cousins, and eating a crazy amount of Swedish candy!

It feels good that the party is over though. Today we did clean-up and caught up on rest. Now we have a fun-filled week touristing in Smaland ahead of us. First stop Kosta and fish pedicures!