Happy Birthday to Our Valentine!

Growing up the only birthday I could remember was my sister's as it was on Valentine's Day.  As a little squirt, I knew her birthday was getting close once you started seeing all the red and hearts in the stores.

Honestly, I have never asked what her thoughts were about having a birthday on a holiday--but to me, it didn't even seem like a holiday to me as Valentine's Day was always a BIRTHDAY party!  As Mom didn't have one of the almost-too-commonly-scheduled C-Sections of today, I guess Tawnya was the one who ultimately decided to be a Valentine's Day baby ;-)

I won't let the cat out of the bag and reveal her age, but I will say that she's obviously older than me if she's my older sister!

We had plenty of fun times together...Dressing our cats up in doll clothes and carrying them around the farm in baskets or pushing them around in strollers...making baby Shawn eat "homemade cakes and cookies" that really turned out to be mud pies...watching Tawnya run over Shawn with the riding lawn mower one 4th of July (that's probably it's own entire post!)...the time Tawnya & Heather T convinced me that my bangs would become wind-proof if I sprayed them 50 times with hairspray...riding into school with Tawnya in her 1986 cherry red Mustang convertible that I always secretly wanted...waiting for her to get tired of her clothes so that I could *finally* wear them...traveling through England together for 3 weeks while I was in high school and Tawnya was in college--and looking at every single church that ever existed while we were there!

Oh, the good times!  Our grown-up lives haven't allowed us to spend extended periods of time together but we still manage to enjoy each other's company at holidays, birthday weekends and girls' trips to Lawrence. 

Happy Birthday to our Valentine, Tawnya!  Not sure if she remembers this song but everytime I think about it I go back to those days of cruising to school in the 'Stang!