A “Not-Hot-Seat” Celebration for Lucy’s Graduation

I mentioned yesterday with all the graduation prep hoopla that we had to kind of cajole Lucy into a graduation party. She was not about to sit in the “hot seat” in front of the extended family for us to spotlight her like we’ve done per tradition with all our other kids. Which is completely understandable. But knowing this girl like I do, I knew she had been pining away for some sort of celebration. Especially since so many friends had been honored in senior nights for their sports or other extracurricular activities. She had talked about those things wistfully. We tried to have a special “senior dinner” for her during MCO concert time, but Lucy has done so many other things to celebrate!

So when I told her it’s just a chance to highlight all the awesome things she’s done, she started to bend. And then when I told her maybe we could even turn guessing all those things into a game, she was in. I mean, that girl is a sucker for games.

She was in as long as she didn’t have to sit in the front.

Ok Lucy. A deal is a deal.

So we whipped up a little invite:

…got this place ready to party:

…and got a little teary looking through all these old pictures we pasted up to reminisce all these years of growing:

Let’s get a closer look at some of those suckers:

Oh man, my heart.

How we have loved being her parents for all these years.

A Little Trivia Game

Looking through all the old photos gave me a lot of ideas to put into the trivia game. So I made up a little slideshow and Dave was the “host.”

I figured, since so many blog readers have been here since the beginning with Lucy, cheering her on, I may as well add the trivia here. Not sure if this power point will work, but let’s give it a try.

If it works, see if you can answer those questions:)

Lots of these guys could.

And I have to say, Lucy was simply beaming. Can you see her on the couch up there? (Not on the “hotseat”:)

Dessert

Then, of course, we had dessert.

Orchestrated by Lucy herself.

It had to be Texas sheet cake or nothing at all in her opinion.

So Texas sheet cake it was, with our favorite recipe.

This girl has the best “village.”

And I love them so much!

It was such a good time to really honor all the hard and good and fun things Lucy has done these eighteen years of her life. To honor her grit and perseverance as she has overcome so many obstacles. To be reminded of how far she’s come.

It was so cute how full of “thank yous” she was when everyone left.

This girl is one in a million and we are the luckiest to get to be her parents and learn from her every day.