Happy Birthday: to the only Cat I've ever loved

I have a little sister

Catlin is her name

I think she's very pretty

with her curly mane.

We like to laugh together

Good friends are what we are.

We can sit for hours and blether

Even in a strangers car.

So come and join with me

And read the post below.

Let's end the horrid poem

And shuffle off to Buffalo.

Y'all, that was so much harder than it looks.

My baby sister, Catlin Daye, is having a birthday today. 

I won't tell you how old she is but it starts with a two and rhymes with heaven.

Here's a walk down memory lane with the one and only Cat in my life....

Her name is Catlin but she also responds to:
CatDaye, Cat, Miss Kitty, Callitan, Kitty Cat, Skister Sue, Cat-Cat-Jehosephat, KitCat, Gosshopper, Callin
I think it's obvious our family has nickname issues.

But first there were two.

Jordan and Jillian, sisters, 17 months apart.

Then, 4 years later my parents thoughtfully gave me and Jilly a baby of our very own...

With little monkey toes.

She was spoiled rotten.

See there I typed "was" but it should be "is."

It's no big secret she's the baby of the family--the favourite.

Jillian thought she was her baby doll...

I thought she was there for me to torment.

And these are our BFF's growing up, our cousins.

Joel, Daniel, and Elise.

Joel loved us, he just didn't know it until we became grown ups.

We did a LOT of things together.

Including but not limited to 1990-1999.

Yes, we rocked those 90's.

Hanging out with ⅛ of our Texas cousins.

Hi Brad!

Ladies and gentlemen:

A picture of a picture.

Ain't nobody got time for scanners.

On this very day...22 years ago.

Y'all.

If I could plaster this all over social media I would.

This is SO indicative of Cat.

She loud and proud with 'dem glasses...

Most of you may not know my father is a professional magician.

Which means we girls are too and have done our fair share of magic shows.

 But uhh minus the professional part.

Us sisters were always inspired by the Miss America pageants on TV.

We made our parents draw names out of a hat to see who would win.

As the only girl who could fit into the red strapless dress in our dress up clothes 

I felt I should be bestowed the honour.

As the only girl in a hat with a veil, Jilly felt like she should be the winner.

Yeah, it was Cat who won.

Favourite.

Christmas Eve after church.

Miss Kitty is rockin' crimped hair.

I'm rockin' shoulder pads.

You guess the decade.

And this photo my mother still has framed in her house today.

Ahem.

Jump back now:

One of our first times in Scotland when my parents lived here.

Charlies' Angels were a big thing.

You can guess the decade.

Ahhh, I now come to the part of the show where Catdaye enters her awkward stage.

We've all had one,

it's usually around 11-13 years of age.

I'm just thankful I'm posting my sisters, and not mine.

High school-aged Jilly,

college-aged Jordan.

awkward-aged Cat.

But never fear...Cat started to emerge rather quickly from her stage.

My awkward stage lasted for dang ever.

Shoot, I'm not certain I can say I've emerged from it.

My parents moved to Scotland when I was a junior in college.

They took my baby sister with them, and then she started looking like this.

Wow.

Approximately 8 days after I graduated from university I got married.

But just because I was an old married lady didn't mean I wasn't still BFF's with my sissys.

Callitan has always been the dancer of the family.

She did ballet (the kind that messes up your feet--pointe?), and highland dance here in Scotland.

She's got the moves like Jagger.

Cat still lived in Scotland after I was an old married lady but we would go see her.

And so did her BFF Jamie.

Did you know Jamie was Miss Colorado International?

She omitted the apron and flour before the pageant. 

It's a bit strange to looking back at these old photos and see us in my now kitchen.

Have you ever lived in a house your parents have lived in?

It's a leetle strange.

Then KitCat graduated from high school.

She was valedictorian of her class.

Favourite.

She had lived in Scotland for several years.

She went to the ball at the high school here.

She had amazing hair here.

She did junk like this here.

Then Cat moved back to the USA to Texas to go to college.

She came back just in time to meet her first nephew, Caedmon.

A few years later she also met her first niece, Caithness.

Then came again to meet Aberdeen.

Cat and Jilly were supposed to be in the room watching Aberdeen being born.

But they missed it by 4 minutes because of the nighttime chatty front desk lady at the ER.

Let's let this be a lesson to us all:

don't be chatty at the front desk.

Then Callitan met a boy.

He proposed to her...in Scotland.

And girlfriend was crazy enough to ask me to do her hair for her wedding.

It was a lovely and memorable wedding.

Her dress nearly caught fire on the candles I placed on floor level--

but y'all, fire safety aside, those candles looked good.

My daughter, the flower girl, tripped and landed splat on her face during the ceremony.

My daughter drank liquid candle wax and "unswallowed" all over her dress.

But please, feel free to invite the Andersons to your celebration.

We're usually not so much the rabble rousers.

She did it!

Happy family + one!

We sisters were still BFF's even though we were now comprised of 2 old married women.

And then Jilly decided to make it an even 3 for 3 old married ladies.

We revel in our married-ladiness.

Once we moved to Scotland Catlin (and Jilly) once again came to witness a birth!

But Airdrie's birth did not go according to any kind of anything and Catlin missed her being born.

I cried the day Cat left.

But then Cat and Jason made ME a blood aunt!

I know, it sounds horrible.

His name is Adlergator and I love him and his squishiness. 

And now we're to present day.

Happy birthday Catlin!

And even though your superior intelligence and wit 

has made my mission of tormenting you nigh unto impossible;

I love you very much!

(So much I'd post this jewel.)