Julia's Birthday: A Retrospective

Julia's birthday party was today, even though her birthday was technically Jan. 19. Apparently the Benton Skate Center is a pretty popular birthday place so you have to schedule way in advance.

But before we get to today's celebration, let's look back on some of Julia's past birthdays.

This was Julia's 5th birthday. We had the party at Lakewood Church of Christ in Baytown. (The Lakewood building was a lot more fun for birthday parties than our own church building.) In this picture, my mom is giving Julia a bracelet she had received from her parents on her 5th birthday in 1950. Other things going on with us at the time: Chad ran in the Houston half-marathon the day after this party. I was newly pregnant with Jenna and running/driving around to all the checkpoints to cheer Chad on. The nausea was just setting in and I carried a box of crackers with me the whole way.

Here we are at Moody Gardens in Galveston for Julia's 6th birthday. The girl next to Julia is Matney, who had been Julia's best preschool friend. This was the year we told Julia she could either have the usual party and invite everyone or take one friend to Moody Gardens. She chose to take Matney to Moody Gardens. It was fun. Moody Gardens has lots of cool stuff like a penguin exhibit and a huge aquarium with all kinds of ocean life. Julia was at the peak of her "all-things-ocean" phase so this was a perfect birthday for her. And look at little baby Jenna!

Yep, we had a skating party last year, too. Baytown has an old skating rink that has not been updated in any way since 1950-something. The floors are wooden and torn-up and the only way to play music is on an old scratchy turntable. As run-down as this may sound, birthday parties there are a blast. This was the day Julia received that scooter and she's been scooting around on it ever since. It's probably her most favorite birthday present ever. Oh -- and look how much she grew up between 6 and 7!

Now she's eight and still riding the scooter. Today's party was the first with all of our new Arkansas friends. Oh -- thanks to everyone for the Hannah Montana party suggestions. We ended up letting the kids skate around to the Hannah Montana CD and instead of "Happy Birthday, Julia," the cake said "Pump Up the Party, Julia!" (Hannah fans will know what that means.)