Lucky Thirteen

In a blink, this baby of mine is a teenager.  

A remarkable young lady with wild hair and a personality that is a study in contrasts.  Fierce, but with the softest heart.  Ambitious, and also a homebody.  Outspoken and opinionated, and also shy.  At thirteen, Ivy loves to read (her gift this year is a set of three bookcases to build a platform bed made of books). She loves to paint, draw, sew, and make crafts in general, and continues to enjoy baking and cake decorating.  She prefers to keep just a few close friends, who she loves with all her heart. Her cat Sunny is her favorite person, except for a few notable horses.  She'll do any amount of work to get to ride.  Like any teen worth her salt, she argues with her brother and rolls her eyes at her parents and is quick to depair when things don't go her way.  She is justice-minded and has found a group of like-minded friends who just blow me away with their radical love and acceptance. I had to buy a new progress flag for the house because she wanted to keep last year's hanging in her room. She's developed a fashion style that centers on wide leg pants, crop tops, hoodies and Doc Martens and she is cooler than I'll ever be.  She's a straight A student who is quiet in class, and she wants to get her associates degree by graduation.  She impresses me every day and drives me crazy and I adore talking with her and her friends as they turn this corner towards young adulthood...

Faces of Ivy Past....

3 months

Two years

Five years

7 years

10 in a pandemic.

And this weekend, with her cool and kind friends.

                                           

She planned and executed her whole party pretty much herself this year.  For the past week, there have been notecards with meticulous to-do lists everywhere in the house.  I am so proud of this girl. She learned list making from the best. :)

         

We teamed up a bit on the centerpiece and the creation of the watermelon bowl for the fruit salad. .. but the cake baking and decorating was all her.

This girl of mine. She made homemade stickers for her guests.  Everyone got a gnome and a frog and then she made a custom sticker for each friend based on their favorite characters.  She worked on these for weeks and there is no way that the 12 and 13 year olds in attendance will ever appreciate these for the gifts they are.

Of course I HAD to make a banner... which was so long the only place for it was the garage...

One of my favorite moments of the day-- all of the kids looking through Ivy's photo book, exclaiming over pigtails and shared memories. 

These kids ran and played and shot arrows and made s'mores and had hammock wars and climbed into the treehouse without a ladder and played board games and ate a LOT of fruit salad and talked and laughed and shrieked and went in the hot tub and gave super thoughtful gifts and just had a wonderful time for over 6 hours in our yard.  And it made my heart so very happy to hear them back there. 

And to not really have to "run" the party!  Crazy!  Much of my time for those 6 hours were spent on the porch with our best friend and these really pretty watermelon cocktails.  Having teenagers is really not so bad sometimes.