Friday, January 21, 2011

how we celebrated

Two days later and it still hasn't fully set in that India has turned 12.  This is the last year of adolescence.  She will be a teenager next year.  The breaking away process moves into full swing during this final year and are we really ready for that?  I really don't know.  She's such an awesome kid.  So far, so good.  Watching her grow is a joy. It was important to me to celebrate this year and remember it and savor it.  Every birthday is a big deal, but turning 12 feels like a milestone.  Maybe when she turns 13 I will feel the same way since then she will be a teenager, but for now, 12 feels like a really big deal and it still doesn't roll off my tongue in a comfortable way yet.

Since I wanted this year to be memorable, we decided to go big on the birthday present, but I'm getting ahead of myself...

When she woke, Kalib made us all smoothies because India really doesn't like breakfast.  They had bananas, strawberries and orange juice.  Then, we all got ready to head to town cause the gal got her hair cut.  It's super cute.  (On a side note, Kalib also got a hair cut).  Afterwards, we walked over to Five Guys and got french fries and hamburgers because that was what she wanted.  Once home, we chilled out for a little while taking it super easy and we played a couple of games, then came the part of the day I spent the whole month looking forward to.  (India, however, did not).  We wrote a scavenger hunt for her that she had to go on before she could have her birthday present.

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I thought it would be a super fun way to get to her gift, but being a maturing young woman, she thought otherwise, but persevered and I think in the end she enjoyed it (though she will probably never admit it).  Some of the clues were too hard and didn't make sense to her, but I think this had more to do with her attitude than anything (Just my opinion of course).  I had fun, Jason had fun, Kalib had fun, and I bet if you ask her she would say it was stupid, but she laughed and ran and showed all the signs of it being fun for her too.  It ended in my grandmothers living room along with her present...
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My family has a history of wrapping presents in extra boxes to make sure the person receiving the present has no idea what it is and because it can be really funny, so just to make absolutely sure India had no idea what it was, her present was wrapped in an even bigger box.
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Once she finally got to the real box, she knew what it was, but until then she thought we had bought her an ipod. (Silly girl already has an ipod, but she's been asking for an ipod touch.) I think we did better than that.
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I think she's pretty satisfied.
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Once, she opened the present (which was from us as well as my folks) we headed to The Olive Garden for dinner. Naturally, she took her new laptop with her. I think this is about the only time India and Kalib have sat side by side in the car that they didn't end up in a fight of the don't touch me's.
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After dinner we headed back to my grandmothers for cake.

Last night we went over to Jason's grandparents house and had another round of celebrating...
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Our beautiful 12 year old.
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