PROM!

It all started with a phone call. A lady identifying herself as the mother of some boy named Aaron told me her son would like to ask Rebekah to Prom and was wondering if she had already been asked? I was a little confused. "When is Prom?" I asked her. I didn't realize it was so close...I thought Sadie Hawkins was next? She assured me that I wasn't going crazy...Prom was still a good 7 weeks away or so. But her son's friends were all starting to ask their dates and he wanted to make sure that he was early enough that he could get his date of choice....Rebekah. Thus reassured, I told her that Rebekah had not yet been asked and the two of us mothers arranged a time for this boy to come by when Rebekah would not be home to set up his "ask."

He showed up a few hours later with some instructions for me. He had a bright pink pillow case with the word PROM spelled out in stitched on letters that he wanted me to fill with her pillow and put on her bed. (It was seriously cute....I was impressed.) He also had his name printed out big and bold on white paper along with some glow in the dark stars...all of which he wanted me to stick to her ceiling. Then finally, a little note to give to her after she had seen the whole thing. I did as he instructed and then hoped, hoped, hoped that she actually liked this Aaron boy....I'd never heard of him before.

Rebekah came home shortly and was delighted to have been asked to Prom. She said that though she didn't know Aaron super well seeing as he isn't part of her hang-out-on-weekends group of friends, that he was really nice and they had been friends since 8th grade...and were in seminary together this year.

She answered him....an Easter theme, a basket with delicate little dyed eggs, the insides blown out and little pieces of paper inside. And then a few weeks later we hauled a couple of Rebekah's friends along dress shopping...she always does better with numerous people giving her advice and feedback, and she trusts her friends more than she trusts me. (I always smile a little when after I say something, Rebekah turns to her friends only to have them agree with what I've said. See? I'm not that old and unstylish....) We found THE DRESS at our first stop. But though Rebekah loved the dress, she still wasn't sure. I think our conversation went something like this:

Rebekah: "What if there is something I like even better at another store?"
Me: "Well, then it won't matter because you'll stop looking and never know."
Rebekah: "But I'll always wonder....."
Me: SIGH

We made a mad dash to our other favorite store. And we did find another contender. But within just a few minutes, Rebekah knew that the first dress at the other store in that other town 20 minutes away really was THE DRESS. I guess it's good to be sure. I mean, this is PROM after all, right? So the next day I made an extra trip to the original store to reserve and pay for THE DRESS before we went out of town for a week. Heaven forbid we waited and someone came in and rented THE DRESS out from under us!

This week was a flurry of of flowers, shoes, nails and hair...but the big day finally came. The day activity was actually the day of the dance rather than the night before, so it was a BIG day and a LONG day. Rebekah came home (happy and smiling) from the day activity with only a little over 2 hours to get ready. She immediately headed to a friend's house who had promised to help with her makeup. Apparently there was a whole group of girls there getting ready together and Rebekah got her hair done as well. Hallelujah! Because if it had been left to me, she wouldn't have had nearly as fancy of a hairdo with my limited hairstyling know-how. But this meant that Rebekah did not arrive home to put on her dress until only 15 minutes before Aaron was to show up! And when the doorbell rang, we were still frantically trying to lace the back of her dress up, corset style. How those women in the olden days wore those things every day, I'll never know. Because though it was nice to be able to lace skinny little Rebekah up nice and tight so that her dress would fit well....it took forever!

But Aaron was patient and smiled really big when he saw his gorgeous date. He was looking pretty dapper himself, even wearing a matching pink vest and tie. The exchange of flowers came next and Rebekah still feeling a little flustered from her mad dash to get ready in time, wasn't sure she wanted to tackle pinning on the boutonniere  So I did it. A little awkward....maybe. But Aaron seemed good natured about the whole thing. I took oodles of pictures and then as I was getting ready to shoo them out the door, Aaron handed me a piece of paper with his mother's email address on it and asked if I'd send some pictures to her. Ummm, can I just say.....brilliant! I am so doing that next year when Rebekah goes on girls choice dances. (Notice that I still have not posted any pictures from Sadie Hawkins last month? Yep...that's because I don't have any yet!)

(We were so rushed to get Rebekah out the door with Aaron that we didn't get any pictures of just her. So at 12:30 PM we did another quick photo shoot at her request before we helped her out of her dress....)

Rebekah came home a little after midnight, looking very tired but very, very happy. She'd had an amazing time, she said...so much fun. Dinner at The Mandarin, the dance itself up at the Capitol Building in Salt Lake and dessert from Cheesecake Factory. The more she told me about Aaron, the more I liked this boy and the sweet way he treated her all evening long.

And then I tried not to think too hard about the fact that I married the boy who took me to Prom my junior year....

Outtakes...  

We were watching Iron Man 2, trying to keep ourselves awake and alert while we waited for Rebekah to come home. We had about 5 minutes left when she arrived so she took off her shoes and corsage, and joined us.

 And then she and Julianne logged into facebook to see all the other posts about Prom and see pictures of their friend's fancy dresses...

Little sister wanted to "help" big sister get out of her fancy dress...