Happy Birthday Daphne!

Happy 16th Birthday Daphne! It seems like just a couple years ago that she was just a toddler. Now she is almost as tall as me, we pretty much wear the same shoes. She has plenty of opinions and she's not afraid to voice them. She has a wonderful innocence that I hope she never completely loses. It is a gift. And really hard to find in teens these days. Daphne is growing into a beautiful young woman on the edge of taking on the world. She has taught me so much about being a Mom. (Yes, Jared, you still hold the record...and your teen years scare me!) We had a double party today. We are faced with the delimma for the past 4 years of having two growing girls with birthdays five days apart. When Victoria was smaller it was a little easier. Daphne would plan her birthday and include Victoria in her plans. Now Victoria has a mind of her own and her own plans. So the first half was a Cooking Party for Victoria. It turned out to be really fun. She invited her best friend Hannah. Everyone got to make their own pizzas, make trail mix and frost and decorate their own cakes. I think frosting their own cakes was the hit. They loved it. And I think my Dad even liked the homemade pizzas. It may have been a first. Kaleb isn't too thrilled about wearing a chefs hat. But he put it on for his little sister.
Jared swiped Hannah's hat to show Kaleb how cool it is to wear a chefs hat! He can be quite the comedian.
Victoria double dipping. She is very talented. She can lick her finger and frost her cake all at the same time

Wow, that tiny bit of Italian in his blood is showing through! "He's makin' pi..zza..."

The second half of the party was for Daphne. She invited three sisters Susanna, Emily and Rachelle. Daphne came up with a great idea for an art project. Everyone got in on the creativity. Both my parents even contributed to the masterpiece. Can you see the horse? Everyone chose a portion of the picture not knowing what the picture was. We all glued on all sorts of collage "Junk"... colored rice, buttons, beads, tissue paper, sequins and even parts of the party napkin. It was great. Daphne can't wait to show their art teacher Larry of what they came up with. I meant to get a picture with everyone who worked on it and I forgot. Well, I will have to get one later. We all had a great time. I can't remember the last time we all just sat at the table a worked on something creative together. I can't remember seeing my parents so relaxed and just taking in the festivities. It was good to see them happy. Everyone was happy.

Kirk is always the life of the party, and here he is with monkeys on his back. The two loudest, most excited monkeys that I have seen in a long time.