Happy 12th Birthday Yardie!!!!

Twelve years ago Tadd and I were living in Everett, Washington and had our first baby. I remember taking her home thinking, "Do they know we don't know what we're doing? They're really going to just let us walk out of here?" I couldn't believe she was ours, and 12 years later, I still can't believe she's ours. It's been such a wonderful 12 years watching her grow into such a sweet young lady. We are so proud of what a loving, kind, fun, intelligent and beautiful girl she is. Our lives are so blessed by her.

To celebrate her birthday she requested strawberry crepes for breakfast, and then we opened gifts. She received some cards from aunts and uncles and great-grandparents all with cash, which she's saving for our trip next month to Utah and California. Grandma Jearldene & Grandpa Kenny gave her a gift certificate to her favorite clothing store and one for some Itunes. Graesie gave her a purse that she bought herself -- it was very pretty, and she was very excited to surprise Yardie with it. Tatum gave her some highlighters and a notebook, and we gave her some clothes (we had a little surprise waiting for her later too.) Then she got ready and went to school. She said that they sang to her in all her classes, but one.

Tadd and I decided a few weeks ago that we wanted to throw a surprise party for her and thought it would be fun to rent a limo for a couple hours. We picked Yard and her friends up from school and had them driven around for 2 hours.

We told Yardley we had a teacher conference with Graesie's teacher and that we would be a couple minutes late, so that we'd have a few minutes to load her friends, and then she'd also wait inside. Our plan backfired though because when we arrived and the limo met us, a ton of kids were outside in PE and they saw and recognized Tadd and I, so everyone went running into Yardley and told her what was waiting for her outside. Yardley came running out and saw the limo and was so preoccupied by what she saw that she walked right in front of a car and came inches from getting hit!

When Yardie got into the limo, she was so excited to see some of her closest friends from church and school, and on the seat we had left a package wrapped for her. She had asked for a digital camera (which we gladly wanted to give her since she keeps borrowing ours,) and we thought this would be a great opportunity, so she could take lots of pictures as they drove around.
I arranged in advance stopping points at various favorite places of Yardley's where each of the girls could pick up a little surprise. They first stopped at Sonic and picked up their choice of a slushy, then we went to WalMart and they ran in to the service counter and picked up lip glosses and nail polish, then we drove to Treasured Child (our wonderful local toy store) and picked up character erasers (Yardie collects them) and bracelets, then we drove a block down to Mary Kinney where they sell Vera Bradley stuff and each of the girls got VB pencils and Yardley picked up a bonus gift, a purse she'd really wanted from Grandma Ginny & Grandpa Po. Then they all piled back in the car and took a longer drive down to Claire's in Louisville to pick up some jewelry, and then back up to LaGrange where the driver dropped them off for dinner & cake at Hometown Pizza.


It was the perfect day, and everything went so smoothly. I'm glad she had such a great day. Tomorrow she'll get to go to the temple to do Baptisms for the dead with her YW group. She can't wait! She's growing up fast. It's hard to believe in 2 years she'll be attending church dances, in 4 she'll be dating and driving, and in only 6 short years she'll be heading off to college! Happy Birthday Yardie, we love you!