Suzanna's 12th Birthday!

Our oldest child is now 12 years old. Suzanna has been looking forward to this day for a long time, not only for the usual reasons (e.g., looking forward to the individual attention, to receiving gifts, to getting to choose the meals for the day, etc.) but for three others particularly tied to being 12 years of age:

1. A 12-year-old child, according to current vehicle safety regulations, may sit in the front passenger seat of a car. (Did you know that children younger than that ought to sit in the back seat? Susan and I have enforced that with our kids, so Suzanna has been eager for the "privilege" of sitting in the front.)
2. A 12-year-old child can be certified and hired as a babysitter, a job that Suzanna has been eager to hire herself out to do. (The American Red Cross provides babysitter training to children as young as 11. Susan and I thought it was 12 and have had Suzanna wait until now. Oops!) By the way, Suzanna got two phone calls today asking her to babysit tomorrow night . . . jobs she would have accepted happily had we not already planned to be out of town ourselves.
3. A 12-year-old child, in our household, can get her ears pierced.

Here are highlights from Suzanna's birthday:

One of Suzanna's gifts was a digital camera, with which she was thoroughly delighted. She quickly figured out many of its special features (e.g., taking photos in sepia or black-and-white modes) and snapped photos throughout the day no matter where we were or what we were doing. (Note in this photo the length of Suzanna's hair so that you may make a comparison to her hair in upcoming photos.)

These are our friends the Donners: Chad, Ethan, Audrey, and Sullivan. Audrey and Susan were great friends during their high school years. The Donners now live in TX but are in the area visiting family for Christmas, and they dropped Ethan off at our house for a play date in the morning and then met us for dinner at Taco John's (Suzanna's choice) around noon.

Our entire family had haircut appointments this afternoon: about 4.5 hours of hair cutting before we were all shorn! Before heading to the salon, we posed for this family pic in Taco John's.

Here is Suzanna with her new hairdo and her newly pierced ears! 12 years old?! Sheesh! What a beauty.

Here are Hillary and Abigail with their new hairdos. The stylist curled their hair for them, too--snazzy!

Here is Susan with her new hairdo. The stylist straightened Susan's hair for her.

Here I am with my new hairdo. Whatevs. Suzanna's ear piercing happened after our hair cuts, after which we went out for supper at Sanford's Grub and Pub, which serves a birthday celebrant a special treat for dessert: a gigantic chocolate chip cookie heaped with three enormous scoops of vanilla ice cream, one covered in strawberry sauce, another in caramel sauce, and the third in chocolate sauce, with the whole shebang topped with (canned) whipped cream and a maraschino cherry.

After supper, we went home and played games to give ourselves time to digest the sundae from Sanford's before . . . eating Suzanna's birthday cake! She requested a brownie cake, which Susan made on a round baking stone and frosted using my mom's wonderful chocolate frosting recipe. Sinfully irresistible.

Look how excited Suzanna is to be 12 years old! And to own her own digital camera! And to have pierced ears! And to have a family who loves her as much as we do!