Once upon a time, I met a girl named Ashley (who would later, on this very blog, be given the eloquent nickname of French Fry).

What can I say? The girl loves her french fries.

Anyways, French Fry became my best friend from the moment I met her and we’ve enjoyed over 10 years of shoe shopping, movie watching and boyfriend sharing (after the other one was done with him, of course).

A couple of years after getting married, French Fry went and had a baby who is now known as my precious Gracie. When it came time to celebrate Gracie’s 1st birthday late last year, I knew I needed A Very Special Gift. And so, I did something that totally proves how serious I was about the gift needing to be perfect: I pulled out my old scrapbook supplies.

I’m no scrapbooker by any means, but I wanted to create something for little Gracie that she could keep for a long time. I love written words (Imaginary Boyfriend, I hope you just took note of that!), so I decided to create a scrapbook filled with letters to my baby Gracie.

I started out with mommy and daddy’s love story…

And then there was Gracie!

And then the letters begin:

Here’s how I did this: I picked out 18 blank note cards (make sure you use acid-free since this is going to be a long-term thing-y). On each note card, I wrote a letter to Gracie for each year of her life until she’s 18. I didn’t stress about what to write in each letter; I just imagined what she might be like at each age and wrote my heart to her. I then slipped them into an envelope and glued each envelope to the page with the “wrong” side up. I then used number stickers to designate which year each letter was for — all the way up until she’s finishing high school.

Not that she’ll ever be that old. Because French Fry and I are going to stay young FOREVER.

For more WFMW entries, go here.