Abigail's 12th Birthday: a story in 5 parts

Part One: The Haircut

She decided to cut off her long hair and try something different for her birthday, turning 12, going into the youth program, starting middle school. So she went from this:

to this: somehow it just makes her seem even older. But it's wonderfully cute on her. (Only dilemma will be getting it pulled up into a bun for her ballet recital . . . hmm, stiff hair gel here we come)

Part Two: The Mommy-Daddy-Daughter Dinner Date

My mom and Chelsea came down the next day and gave her some cool gifts and then babysat the younger kids for us that evening. I gave her some clothes I had gotten at a Downeast Basics $5 sidewalk sale and Zac and I got dolled up and took her out for dinner!

She chose The Olive Garden. Here she is drooling over the menu when we told her she could order dessert. And eating pizza.
The weirdest part was sitting across from her and realizing that in 4 yrs it is likely that she might be sitting in a restaurant with some silly boy sitting across from her. On a date (!). yikes. hahaha. ;)

Part Three: Balloons

The next day we surprised Abigail by putting 12 helium balloons in her room while she was sleeping, along with notes attached listing 12 things we really love about her.

She told us she had woken up in the middle of the night and walked through the strings without thinking much of it. But when she got back to her room, she realized that was strange and turned on the light to see what it was. haha. :)

(I must say that this is one of my favorite things I've ever done for one of my kids' birthdays. So fun.)

Part Four: The Cake

I decided I wanted to try to make a cake like this:

(I saw this idea on Pinterest, of course. My favorite browsing time-waster of all time)

SO I borrowed some cake pans and went to it.

Some thoughts on this attempt:

1. I stink at mixing colors. I mean seriously. I used gel food coloring so at least it's not supposed to dilute the batter as you add coloring, but still. I didn't want to have more coloring than batter. And eventually I just gave up on the whole "maybe another drop of this or that would help" game.

2. I didn't get the cake layers divided into equal parts. Actually as you look at the below pic, it appears that the layers get thinner as you go down. That was completely unintentional.

3. And I hate frosting cake. Me and frosting/icing have a very hate-hate relationship. We are not kind nor patient with one another. No, we just don't get along. Period.

and 4. don't criticize the inaccuracy of my rainbow spectrum. I'm just happy to have 6 distinct colored layers. Rainbow, shmainbow.

Part Five: The Party

And finally, Abigail blew out the candles (sort of). And opened her presents. She looooved the cake. The younger kids all whined "when will weeee get such a biiiiiiig cake?!" and all in all it was a great time. ;)

The one thing she had specifically asked for was . . . . .

a wig.

hahahahah. This kid cracks us up. So along with the fake noses and teeth she got for Christmas, and hats and scarves and other various props from around the house, she has a fairly complete disguise kit, I'd say.

And that was her 12th birthday. :)

Zac was sort of surprised by all the things I wanted to do for her birthday and "going all out" - but I just felt like this was a momentous and important year for her. Kind of huge. And I wanted it to be something special she'd always remember. Sending her into her crazy teenage yrs all full of love and confidence.

That's what I hope anyway.

Love this girl. :)