HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO KRISTEN!!

Today, July 9th, is Kristen's 27th birthday. Happy Birthday to my Darling Daughter! The last time we were able to celebrate Kristen's birthday with her in person was her 21st birthday. She now lives in Virginia (metropolitan Washington, DC). It's been hard being away from her and seeing her so seldom (only at Christmas, usually). It's especially hard to be separated on the special days.

So today I celebrated the day by remembering the day of her birth, as much of it as I can. Because she was a footling breech, I had a scheduled Cesarean, so I wasn't in pain before the birth, and was awake for it, but shortly afterward (still during surgery), the saddle block anesthetic wore off, so the rest of the day was spent in a haze of pain.

Subsequent birthdays were much better for me, LOL! I looked through a bunch of early birthday party photos today. The photo above is of Kristen's first birthday, with me, her cousin Nick (second from left) and his friend John. I also made a large cake, and we have the requisite photos of her with a face full of chocolate cake. (We had no idea how to celebrate a first birthday! That evening we had another couple over for dinner and they brought her a card with a dollar. She, of course, had no idea what it was all about.)

This is her second birthday, at Grandma and Grandpa Fredericksen's house - Grandma and Grandpa spoiled her with many presents. Grandma Lil made an angel food cake with butter creme frosting. This was the traditional birthday cake in the Fredericksen Sr. family and I continued the tradition in our family.

From the third birthday on, I would make an angel food cake for the family, and get another cake for the party. The third birthday party featured a Smurf cake. This was the first birthday we invited a bunch of kids to.

For the fourth birthday, we went to Happy Joe's pizza and ice cream parlor. I don't know that I would do THAT again (I was the chauffeur/chaperon for all the half dozen kids who attended!) Kristen is sporting what I call her "Cheesy Grin", which she always produced when I told her to "Smile".

For the fifth birthday, we were back to celebrating at our house. It was a gorgeous day and we put the folding table out on the lower deck. I think the cake for this one was a "My Little Pony" ice cream cake. This is the only birthday we recorded with a video camera. Well, partially recorded. The "On" button was left on while the camera languished on the deck, and so we got a lot of "dead" film.

The little girl on the right in the photo had long, long dark hair and bangs too, and looked very much like Kristen. It so happened that they had the same tops, and sometimes, from the back, you couldn't tell one little girl from another.

We had a tropical theme for Kristen's sixth birthday. All the kids were asked to wear tropical type clothing, if they could, and bring swim suits. Once again, it was a beautiful day and the party was held outside. That's the nice thing about summer birthdays - you can fill up the kiddie pool or turn on the sprinkler and let them run and scream to their hearts' content.

Kristen, I hope you are having a wonderful day and received our presents.

All our Love,

Mom, Dad and Gracie