June 28th, 2001 was a Thursday -- just as June 28th, 2012 was! Francesca Lee Baber made her way into the world at 9 in the evening at Basset Hospital on Fort Wainwright Army Base in Fairbanks Alaska. She was delivered by our good friend Vince Barnhart. Eleven years later I'm still in love with her. She's not perfect (I just picked her towel off the bathroom floor), but she's pretty close.
I feel like I have this one last year to enjoy her "little girl" time. Next year she'll be out of Primary and in the Young Women's program at church -- truly a pre-teen. I'm so not ready for that.
On Francesca's Birthday, Francesca, Tori and I went to see "Brave" at the theater and had lunch in the food court. We enjoyed the movie -- kind of a perfect movie for Moms and Daughters!
A friend of ours told me years ago that in her large family they designated certain birthdays as "party" years. When you turn 5, 8, 12, and 16 you could have a party. I thought this was a fantastic idea. So we adopted it as our own -- but Tori totally made out with multiple parties before its institution. Poor Francesca on the other hand only had a party when she was 5. The 8 year old party we moved back a couple of years -- never seemed like we got it all together in time to pull it off -- we often were on the road or had company during that time period (not that we didn't celebrate -- it just wasn't a kid party). So finally she got her party this year. I guess that means she'll get back to back parties next year -- with new friends -- but it's definitely going to be more low key. Birthday parties are just so pricey even when you're trying to go cheap!!
So Francesca decided she wanted a Lego themed party. She's our Tom Boy. I did a Pinterest search and found some really cute ideas -- we didn't go as overboard as some but I think we had a really good time. We had planned a couple of games centered around Legos but what transpired was everyone playing in the water outside. It was total mayhem and they loved it. We had two slip and slides going on and a baby pool with 20 water guns ready and waiting. There were a few water balloons but the night's previous storm pretty much demolished the small reserve we'd started.
We had a nice group of kids -- pretty evenly split between boys and girls. Francesca received some nice gifts too. It was a really fun day -- and playing in the water felt good with all the heat. I was so beat afterwards -- and can't say I was disappointed when church was cancelled because the power hadn't been restored yet (more damage from the storm).
I'm glad to say she finally got a birthday party -- and with her childhood friends too. We joked later that the only thing that would have made it better was if Dad could have been there and it ended with dinner at Old Mill for crabs -- sigh -- somethings aren't meant to be. We're still looking forward getting to Old Mill before the end of the summer!
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