Francis's First Birthday Party

Francis's First Birthday Party
Originally uploaded by The Gulde Family.

You only turn one once. Francis's first birthday was certainly memorable, although she won't be the one to remember it. When do kids start developing lasting memories, by the way?

Anyway, we had this party on Saturday and it was more fun than we could have imagined. There was a donkey pinata! (congratulations to Noah Breit for emptying the donkey of his sweet candy innards). There was swimming! There was a tent! (On that one, I have to emphasize "was" because the wind destroyed the tent yesterday). There was cake! (cake that we baked in our neighbors' oven because ours doesn't work. Thanks Ben and Maureen!). There were gifts! Thank you all who came and celebrated with us. We'll remember Saturday always.

As for Francis, she laughed (when she got frilly dresses from Grammie), she cried (when we sang Happy Birthday to her), and she slept (like a rock after most of the people left).

It was a particular pleasure to have such great representation of the Carlsson Clan there. Carl "Babe" Carlsson was my dad's roommate at N.D. from 1950 - 1952. Despite the distance between Texas and Illinois, our families have been close ever since. In this set of pictures, you'll notice a family picture of three generations of Carlssons (which now includes Lucases and LeCocqs as well). Thanks for coming, guys!