Twelve Year Old MIDDLE Child

Yesterday was my A's 12th birthday! She went to the movie theater to see Enchanted. She took along a friend and (reluctantly) her 2 siblings. We walked around the mall afterward.
A. usually ends up celebrating the whole month of January. She declared, one year when she was a preschooler, that January was her "Birthday Month" and she has held true to form ever since- meaning EVERY day in this month is for her!! Remember...she is a middle child.

A. is very easy going person, like her Daddy. She enjoys researching about space and planets and NASA, she loves cats and flamingos and giraffes, she is a talented artist and has had her drawings/paintings displayed in 5 different art exhibits. She is a perfectionist (ever live with one of those?) and has always been a straight A student.

For this photo I told N. and A. to pretend they love each other. This was the resulting expression from each of them. They are pretty typical siblings- love to play with/help each other one minute and the next minute they hate one another.

On this day 12 yrs. ago, I (with really dorky looking hair) didn't know I would deliver a 9 1/2 pound baby girl by emergency c-section the next day after about 16 hours of hard labor!! That's "big sister" E. trying to stick out her tummy like Mommy's, standing in the waiting bunny themed nursery room. The cat's name was Cleo. The big Teddy Bear is named Bruiser and was my Mom's. Bruiser sits atop my Grandma's steamer trunk- filled with baby clothes.