Happy Birthday to a creative kid

When I came home from some errands on Saturday, I looked out my bedroom window and saw this. Can you see what it says? "I had to look really hard for the E," I was told.

Our youngest daughter being creative again. Being a fair bit younger and more childlike than her mid- and late-teen sisters, she's grown up playing alone more than they did, and because of it, she seems to come up with these little inventive creative projects that often amaze me. See the sea serpent below? I can't figure out how she did that without making any deep tracks in Saturday afternoon's soft snow.

While her older sisters have high school and post-secondary stuff on their minds, the youngest is still enjoying Lego (soooo excited about the Lego Store coming to Southgate!), loves paper cut outs, and prefers to be read to at bedtime (we just finished a collection of three stories by E. L. Konigsburg, our favourite one being The View from Saturday -- a wonderful story of developing friendships).

Our girl is a marvel, to be sure, and today is her last day as a twelve-year-old. She's independent enough that she doesn't seem to feel pressured to 'fit in' with the girlie girl tweens at school -- as she puts it, "Mom, everyone is an oddball in grade seven whether they think so or not."

I hope and pray that her teen years treat her well, and that she never loses her creative spirit and energy!

Happy Birthday, Julia.

(She had to prove she fit in the kennel that is awaiting her birthday present...)

I love you, too.
Mom