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Showing posts from November, 2020

Celebrating 18 with Gratitude and Intention

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For Anna's 18th Birthday, 18 weeks before her birthday, I reached out to 18 people to ask them to spend some intentional time with her and to write her a letter for this milestone of a birthday. It was a follow up to her 13th Birthday Crossing Celebration , and it turned out to be a huge gift for her again in her senior year.  Below is part of one of Anna's supplemental essays she wrote for one of her college applications. When I first read this, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for having people in her life as her "cloud of witnesses" and for the fact that she was able to articulate how this has shaped her so much. This confirmed how important this was in her formation at 13, and it was so fitting to follow up again with a similar invitation for her senior year in turning 18 with quality time carved out and with words of blessing poured out over her.  box of letters we gathered from her 18th birthday "cloud of witnesses"  some letters below of letters with

Be joyful though you have considered all the facts

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Wendell Berry writes, " Be joyful  though you have considered all the facts "  in his poem  Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front .   This is my mantra for celebrations--especially in 2020.  Here are photos of  more ways we celebrated our 18 year old...  deck the halls...  Amazing Sarah dropped by with doughnuts and a gift to start off her day the kitchen was all ready for cookie dough waffles for breakfast....  more balloons this morning with more pictures as a surprise- because why not?  hard at work...  Hope came by with her puppy Juke to drop off cookies for the birthday girl  Taylor's snapchat for Anna today :)  the day just keeps getting better! flowers from Eva and Tamara  sidewalk chalk as a surprise from Ellie Chapman      

Balloon Tradition

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We have given up trying to put balloons up while Anna and Taylor are asleep on the night before their birthday as they stay up later than we do and because we don't want to wake them up too early in the morning....  so Jason and I put these up while Anna was in dance on the night before her birthday, and she walked in to find her room decked out with gold balloons and with photos all around.  This was such fun to scroll through tons of photos to pick some favorites.