i see london, i see france...

i am the fourth generation of frances on my mom's side of the family, i having been named after my great-grandmother on whose birthday i was born. (that was some fancy grammar, eh?) as a kid i was sort of self-conscious about my name; it was unusual and old ladies had it and most everyone spelled it wrong. as an adult, however, i have come to really, truly love my name, and i eschew all variations of it. the only person i have ever let call me "fran" was josh caldecourt, and that was just because i had a massive crush on him all through high school. (as a sidenote, josh moved to colorado, where my parents live, after we had graduated from high school and we met up and dated for a while, which is one of the great victories of my life.)

but, i digress. the point i am trying to make here is that i never really had a nickname growing up. the last couple years, though, my name has met with some intriguing modifications and it seems the one that stuck most firmly is "francey-pants." and, oddly enough, i'm cool with that. (i'm even cool with the fact that now jen just calls me straight up "pant." i had to draw the line, though, when chris started calling me "panty." that's just uncomfortable for everyone.)

being that it was my first real nickname, i felt a lot of ownership for francey-pants. so i am sure you can imagine my surprise when i discovered there were other francey-pantses running around, namely my friends mykel and rob, last name france. and when you make a discovery like that, there is only one thing to do. have a party!

that's right, a francey-pants party. what is that? you might ask. well, it is a party celebrating all things pant-related. so, basically it's just an excuse to wear hilarious underwear over your pants, and nametags that say things like, "captain underpants!" and "sir pantsalot." we also ate hot pockets. (get it? that was mykel's idea, and i thought it was brilliant.) behold...





mykel sewed some lace on these little numbers, so we could have fancy-francey-pants.



we scattered the rest of the underwear all over the living room, tucked into couch cushions and lying on the floor, so people could come in and choose their own. tim decided on these. natch.





suvi came in from new york just for the party! not really. it was because her sister had a baby, but good timing, eh?







we encouraged people to pick pant-related nicknames that fit their personalities. mission accomplished, wouldn't you say?





there is something about wearing underwear over your pants that seems to encourage this kind of posture.

there were also plenty of pant-related games to keep us occupied. my pant-shaped cookies came out of the oven looking more like what pants cover,



but that opened the door for some creative decorating.









we also played a rousing game of "pin the pocket on the pants."





rob got really close, aided no doubt by his pants,





and miaken was ready for a smack-down,



but sarah jones was the winner.

people could also decorate their own pants, which sallee did for me.





truer words have never been written on a pant.

to cap off the evening, we all headed over to a 45-minute dance party (a completely genius idea). dancing francey-pantses. what could be better?