Happy birthday Tessie!

Today is my littlest sister's birthday, and she is thirteen!! Welcome to teenagehood dearest sister!! Tessie is the most talented, caring and sunny baby sister anyone could ask for. She sings beautifully (had a school choir concert last night and was recently accepted to an All-State junior choir), has a magical touch and a huge loving heart when it comes to any kind of animal, and she is an AMAZING artist. How she can draw such realistic looking cartoon people is beyond me. Two cases in point:

I love the amount of detail she puts in. This 
one is just a doodle, probably from her math 
notebook! The way she made their hair flow in 
the water is just fantastic.

From realistic body sizes to Uggs and
 gestures, her cartoon people always
blow me away!

See here, her artwork tag on my mom's blog, for more! Seeing her art never fails to brighten any gloomy day of mine.

Given that Tessie's birthday is in November and I'm 11 years older than her I think I've missed about as many as I've been around for, which is a really sad part of being an older sibling.

This year I emailed her a little collage I made of her being the absolutely way-too-cute 3-and-4-year-old she was. She mostly knew it at that time, and it helped her get out of trouble more than once! That was probably all her older siblings' fault though, because who can't not spoil the baby?!
  

I'm not sure if she knows how beautiful she still is though. Here's a recent picture from the morning of my wedding, with her all dressed up as a junior bridesmaid:






Happiest of birthdays dear sister! Here's hoping that this coming year of your life is full of adventures, happiness and growth. I miss you tons and love you more!!