My baby is 17!

Today was my oldest daughter's birthday. I can't believe it was 17 years ago that I gave birth to her. I don't have the classic feeling of "my how time has flown by," but I am amazed at how she has grown, matured and that I even have a daughter that will soon be graduating from high school, going off to college and starting a life somewhat separate from my own. It is absolutely an amazing and wonderful time.

She took off from work so she could spend it with her brother and sisters. She said she'd never spent her birthday with them and they've been asking, "When's Amber's birthday?" So sweet, huh?

I wanted to share her day with you.

You can't see all the little heads here, but the younger kids were standing waiting for her as she came around the corner in the morning. They were holding a card for her. Andre was so excited about it being Amber's birthday that he woke up at 8 a.m. and sat in the living room waiting for her to get up. (Don't you just love the Tweety Bird jammies!? LOL)

It's kind of tradition for everyone to have a special birthday breakfast so I got up and prepared breakfast for everyone. We had two kinds of muffins (sorry, no baking here, but they were good nonetheless), strawberries, blueberries, grapefruit, omelets, turkey sausage, coffee and juice. I think that was everything.

Doesn't it look yummy?






I guess they thought it was tasty because they cleaned their plates and asked for more! They really loved sitting at the big table with us... Andre and Amareah normally sit at their own table for meals.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and giving her little trinkets and cards throughout the day. Her best friend stopped by and after lunch, which we had at Subway (one of her favorite spots), we had cake and ice cream.

They played with the race car track.

We really enjoyed our lunch out.
Although the cake was supposed to be a surprise, Amareah told Amber about it as soon as we got home with it on Sunday.

Happy Birthday, sweet Amber!