Music Themed Bar Barakah- Son of Blessing

We had a wonderful time celebrating with the Brothers at Zeky's Bar Barakah.  Casie does such an amazing job!  It's a pleasure to help out and be a part of her parties.  This was a special CeLeBration for their son who turned 13 this month.  Instead of going with the traditional jewish idea of a Bar Mitzvah, they decided upon making it more of a time of blessing for him as he enter manhood.  Bar Barakah means Son of Blessing, and the afternoon was just that a time for his father to bless him, a time for some of the men in his life to bless him, and a time for them to pray sweet blessings over him.  Aside from helping get ready for the big day, Christi's family also shared a song that they wrote special for Zeky on this day.  I pray he holds all of the words that were shared with him close to his heart and in his mind. 

Because Zeky plays piano, Casie went with a music theme, using black and white stripes to represent a piano and one of his favorite colors, green.  She also incorporated other fun things that are favorites of Zeky's.  She used black and white fedora hats as the centerpieces with tissue paper and sparkly treble clefs and stars coming out.  She also used green sour candy straws coming out of vases for a snack for guests during the presentation.  Since the party started in the afternoon she wanted to make sure that the guests didn't get hungry during the ceremony part, so she also had bowls of snack mix with green sixlets and amazing M&Ms specially ordered with his face on the candy and wording that went along with the theme.  It was a very fun addition.  Each place setting also had a water bottle with a fun music note label with Z$ on the front.  It's what he likes to be called.  :)

 Laura Kidd Photography also took some great pictures of him ahead of time and those were used in frames on each table as well.

 Lots and lots of fun details......

 Casie made this piano out of cardboard for the cards to go into.

 A fun display at the gift table of pictures and decor.

The food was delicious and simple.  Instead of serving a big meal, Casie decided on just snacky foods that would be filling.  There were meatballs and BBQ Weenies, 3 different dips, chips, crackers, veggies, and an ice cream bar with toppings, syrups, and the machine to make it more fun.

Onto the ceremony.....

 His dad's welcome

 The men's line up for reading Scripture

 His speech

 Men's prayer

 The Bovee's song

After the ceremony, the guests enjoyed food, fellowship, and then a special act by 3 local comedians.  There was much visiting, dancing, and enjoying the time to just hang out with one another at a special time for a young man.  

Party favors

Order of events for the afternoon

Some of Zeky's best buds put him on a chair and carried him around the room singing Hava Nagila, meaning Let us Rejoice, while the guests all clapped their hands.  It was a very memorable moment and super special!  

 Casie found this great idea for the guest book.  This is Zeky's bedroom door that all the guests wrote on.  There are some special words on that door!

 There was some great dancing going on too, led by Zeky's dad and Aunt Monica.

 Since I wasn't in charge of the photo booth area I didn't get too many of those, but I was able to get one of our family before the whole night was over.  What a fun thing to add to a party!  I hope all the families made sure to get at least one picture in.

And the beautiful Brothers girls at the photo booth.  So much fun with friends and family!

It was a superb CeLeBration!  We all pray that Zeky continues to walk in truthfulness and as each day goes by, grows more and more into a wonderful man.  Blessings to the whole Brothers family!

If you want to see more pics of the guests at the party, check out this blog post here of this same Celebration only with more people in the pics.  :)

Outer Space Celebration

We had a spectacular school program with friends and family last weekend.  Our theme this year was Outer Space, and we had a lot of fun thinking of foods and decorations to make it an out of this world program for our guests. 

For food we had: Venus Veggies, Asteroids (meatballs), meteorites (grapes), orange suns, Milky Way candy bars, Crescent Moon chicken salad sandwiches, star shaped cookies, moon pies (oatmeal cream cookies), shooting star lemon shooters, moon phase dipped oreos, and to drink, rocket fuel.

 When our guests arrived, they were each given a gold star to pin on their shirt at our space shuttle check in.  This was their badge to enter the space shuttle.   Just inside the door, one of the children would greet them, check for their badge, then take them to board.  We used the school room as our shuttle, so it would feel like they were really out of this world.  We covered the walls and ceiling with black plastic, hooked up a black light to the ceiling, set up chairs and had our stage for our shining stars to perform.  From the ceiling we also hung the 9 planets and the sun that were painted with glow in the dark and flourescent paint to make them really light up with the black light on them.  During the introduction to the program, Josiah handed out hand fans to the guests since their first stop was the sun.  We didn't want anybody getting overheated.  : )  The fans were just plain white paper with gold sticker stars on them.  The white fans really stuck out under the black light. 

 The children created planet boards using different styles of art and shared planet facts with our guests, then their was some Scripture recitation, and music.  They decorated their own shirts with paints, putting their names on them and then drawing stars, planets, etc. to go along with the theme. 

Christi's parents always like to contribute something really fun for the children, so they made this hamburger space ship for the children to take their pictures with.  It really lit up the room, and the children had a blast with it.





Christi, Diella, and Grandma Deborah



And then we always take pictures of the children with their guests.



The children with Casie's family.



Christi and her shining stars.



 Of course there was lots of fun with the black light and what it does to brigthen everything.  From the clothes to the teeth, they all had fun playing around in the school room space shuttle with it.

 Each guest was also given a party favor, rocket, filled with chocolate candies.  It was just enough to give them a sweet reminder of the fun that was had at the Outer Space School Program.