Where did Monday go? Is it really Tuesday already? This day in history ... 8/12

Wow! This week already has me confused. Where did Monday go?

Today is Tuesday, August 12.

Eighteen years ago today there were 2 very important events going on in my life:

1) my niece Jessica Lillian Cook was born
2) Russ and I were planning our September 15 wedding.

It's so funny to think that Jessica Lillian actually determined the date of our wedding. We became officially engaged in July of 1990 and I really wanted to get married as close to my father's birthday in August as possible, but ~ we did not want to chance one of two things happening:

a) that Jessica would not be born until the day of our wedding which would have been quite the conundrum because Randy was giving me away, and Mom and I would have wanted to be with Randy and Traci at the hospital. I can just imaging the phone calls I would have been making:

"Russ and I won't be getting married today, I will be at the hospital excitedly awaiting the birth of my niece."

b) that Jessica would have been born too close to our wedding date for Traci to be comfortable with attending the wedding and having a 100 plus people wanting to cuddle and snuggle the newbaby.

So - we picked a date that was safe and in the middle of September.

I had so much fun picking out Jessica's dress for the wedding: it was this totally adorable pale, pale icy blue with white accents. Too totally sweet!

One of my favorite wedding pictures is the one of me snuggling my girl close for a pre-wedding cuddle. I should have thought to scan the picture and send it over.

So anyway ~~~~ today is Jessica's 18th birthday!!!!
Happy Birthday Jessica!

I hope your present reached you in time, and I hope you loved it as much as I loved making it.

Jessica is into photography, so I customized 3 wooden 4 x 6 frames for her using the most amazing pieces of handmade scrapbook paper, ribbon that matched a dance costume of Jessica's, photos of Jessica and Manda, an old roll of film and modge podge.

The frames took me several weeks to get all the layers to dry completely and allow each layer to be the focus.

Jessica also writes amazing poetry and blogs, and I thought that maybe she might be able to frame one of her smaller works of the heart.

Happy 18th Birthday Jessica!