PHOTOS: Happy Birthday, Juliana

Paper lanterns lit up the sky above Ocean Beach Monday night as family and friends came out to celebrate a little girl's third birthday.

Only the party had to go on without her.

Juliana Peña, of South San Francisco, after a , a childhood cancer. Since then, as her parents have mourned her, they have kept her memory alive on the Juliana's Journey Facebook page and website. Jesus Peña and are on their way toward starting a foundation in Juliana's name to fight neuroblastoma.

For her third birthday, Peña and Watson invited dozens of family, friends and supporters to celebrate and remember her on the beach with food and cake. People wrote personal messages to Juliana on the paper lanterns they sent up to her in the sky, and after lighting three candles on the birthday cake, they waited for the wind—or Juliana—to blow them out.

Peña and Watson's lantern expressed a simple wish to their daughter, calling her by her nickname: "We love you, Cita."