Five Years In The Making

It happened year after year.

The same exact conversation.

Chris and I would talk about Addie's Birthday and wonder if we should have a party for her with her friends from school.

We would agonize over it

and

at the end of the day, we just wouldn't do it.

I think a big part of it was fear.

The fear of having a party for her and no one coming.

She wouldn't have known, but we would have.

This is Addie's last year with the group of friends who we know love Addie

so we decided, 

against our deepest fear,

to have a party for her.

I couldn't decide when to have her party, but the date just kind of fell into my lap when the person who I really wanted to do Addie's cake had a last minute cancellation

and then

it just so happened that the dance studio was able to accommodate us as well.

I had two weeks to make it happen

and

I didn't tell Addie until we were putting invitations into the cubbies at school.
(and let me just say that it was so hard to limit the number of people to invite, so I decided to limit it to Addie's classmates) 

photo courtesy of Kim at Kim Sharit Photography

I don't think she understood, so I didn't bring it up again until we were on the way to her party.

She sat calmly in her car seat.

She alternated between trying to get my attention and looking intently out the window.

I think she could feel how nervous and excited I was!