Rachel's birthday

Rachel had done a pizza and a movie party for 3 years in a row. No sense in changing it now. She decided they'd watch Gnome Alone, so we went with Gnome cupcakes. I think they turned out pretty cute for just a little work.

After cupcakes came a lot of fun presents.

Then it was on to the movie.

 Unfortunately we didn't drag out the first part of the party long enough so we were left with a full hour after the movie before parents showed up to take the kids home. Much too long when you have little kids that need to get to bed without a bunch of loud girls running around. We managed to contain them with a game or two of tellestrations that turned out very funny.

A friend snapped a picture of Rachel's last time being sung to for her birthday in Primary (though we didn't know at the time that it would be her last time).

 With her birthday 2 days before Thanksgiving we saved the family party for the day before Thanksgiving so we could celebrate Ben's and her birthday together and have some of the Campbell clan here by then, too.

 Todd's family gave her (and therefore us) two fun games: Azul and Tak. We've enjoyed playing both games quite a bit. She felt good and showered in love and gifts with her birthday. A month later Grandma Knight was bringing her home from school and Rachel was saying how 11 was kind of a blah age since you don't get to do anything cool. But that just happened to be the day that President Nelson announced the changes allowing all kids turning 12 in the year to start YW and going to the temple in January. So Rachel was super excited when she heard that and now thinks 11 is a pretty awesome year. We are all very excited to have her join me in Young Women and get to go to the temple. Well, all except maybe Annie, who is a bit jealous of the new and exciting things Rachel gets to do.