We had a grand celebration for Lucy’s birthday.  I think we kind of nailed it.  Mostly because she let us know exactly how it should go:) 

…Right down to the surprise party suggestion she wrote out in detail in what we like to call her “birthday epistle”… five full pages filled with things that might help us get that day right…down to the details of the color of the piñata for her dreamy surprise party that of course we shouldn’t tell her about.
Well, there was no piñata.  And I let her know right from the start that there would be no birthday party (we only do birthday parties on “odd” years and she already had one last year).

But then my friend who’s daughter is Lucy’s friend told me she had also heard about the surprise party idea (Lucy is sure good at getting those ideas out!), and told me she’d help if I wanted.  And then I realized I’m a push-over because really, what could be the harm in having a few friends over for a surprise breakfast?  Not the full-scale party she had outlined in her “epistle,” but I texted a few friends the night before the Saturday before her birthday to see if we could pull a little surprise off and all but one could make it.
So they all showed up while Grace took Lu on a little “distraction” date and boy they sure surprised her when she got back.
They jumped out from behind the counter when she walked in.  At first Lucy jumped out of her socks in surprise, but then that huge smile spread across her face and she was pretty pleased.

We had “sky blue puppy pancakes with strawberries, bananas and pulp free orange juice” which she outlined for the actual birthday day, but luckily she was ok with that for the surprise breakfast with her friends as well.

They played her favorite card games, swam, and jumped on the trampoline to their hearts’ content.

We even had a little impromptu “candy bar game” which was pretty exciting I tell you!

Meanwhile our good friends were in town staying with us for a wedding, and we loved visiting with them as the girls did their thing.

That is one of the easiest “non-parties” I’ve ever thrown.

On Sunday night we had the cousins over for cake and ice cream:

Lucy instructed that she only wanted them to sing the Dutch version of the birthday song we sing in Dave’s family…and explained that she really didnt’ like the “happy birthday song” much, so we obliged.

(Love those cousins!)

And then on Monday the big day finally arrived…already quite thoroughly celebrated.

But what do you know, we had some more celebrations in us with our early-morning-before-school birthday breakfast:

…and candy bar poster:

…and blue pancakes again…this time with chocolate chips:

…and a really sorry excuse for a “puppy” shaped one for her.  It passed with flying colors though!

Presents:

…and sister love abounded.

Young Women love abounded too.  Her new church leaders did a giant heart attack (that was thwarted a tad bit by the rain…hence some of the inside hearts in the first picture on this post).

I took her to Firehouse subs for lunch (from school) and while we were gone one of her friends snuck in and decorated her room.

Seriously the sweetest thing ever.  I wish I had a recording of her going through all the little details of that decorating job…it was masterful and she was so happy!!

Her new church leaders came over to give her some new church stuff:

We went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner:

…came back for games:
…a traditional birthday visit from our best-neighbors-ever:

Ranger cookies with M&M’s for the “cake” (as per instructions):

And lots of love from her mom and dad.

Moral of the story?
Always write a birthday epistle if you want your birthday to turn out just as you dream you’d like it to.
It was a fun birthday and I can’t believe my baby is TWELVE!

7 Comments

  2. I've always just hoped that somebody would throw me a surprice party! To this day, nobody has yet to read my mind so maybe I have to channel my inner Lucy and start throwing the idea out so that my 27th birthday will be this awesome 😀

    Reply

  4. I love the way Lucy's mind works. Reading this post was delightful. Good job Shawni for rolling with it and helping make her birthday dreams come true!

    Reply

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