Nice to be with friends and family

Today was my daughter's high school graduation party. The morning was spent doing hair, painting fingernails and toenails and making sure we had all the memorabilia ready for the party. We had gathered all her ribbons and medals and plaques and had everything loaded into the car for the big event.  We have been planning the party for months, but even so - it felt like it was just yesterday when we first started talking about it. Time just flew by. We shared the party with my daughter's good friend and her family and that was just the best idea ever.  Both my daughter and her friend have many friends in common and the friend's mom and I share many of the same friends so sharing the party was a brilliant idea.  We ended up sharing all the costs and doing 1/2 the work. Genius! We had the party at a lovely little Victorian house and the whole thing was so nice.  Almost everyone on the guest list came and we were able to spend the entire day chatting and laughing with friends and family.  The food was delicious, the weather was perfect, the room was beautiful and I feel so blessed to have so many loved ones to share the day with. I want to say the iced cookies were my favorite part of the whole party - but even though they were REALLY REALLY REALLY yummy and I ate WAY TOO MANY cookies - I think my favorite part of the entire day was the big slideshow that was running for the duration of the party.  The girls put together a slide show that was about 35 minutes long and kept it on a continuous loop. There were pictures of my daughter from when we brought her home from the hospital all the way through her senior year of high school.  You could hear the collective, "Awwwwwww" in the room whenever a particularly cute picture showed up on the slide show. My daughter said she could feel all the happiness of her childhood in every picture.  That just melted my heart. I hope tomorrow I will be very brave when Pomp and Circumstance starts to play and I watch my daughter cross the stage to receive her diploma. I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry. I mean my eyes might be moist and some wetness may fall - but I will not cry!