Happy Birthday Precious Caitlin!!

21 years ago today, my life changed forever. It was a dark and stormy night - wait, wrong story. Actually, I was on my way to work - as I opened the front door to leave, my water broke. I'm thankful to this day that it happened before I got to work. I would have hated to explain to our dear baby girl why she was born in a Veterinary Clinic! Cait was 2 full weeks early - I promise you the last time she has been early for anything! DH drove like a madman to the Dr.'s office, he said "yep, your water broke" and sent us directly to the hospital. At that point, Cait apparently decided to go ahead and wait another 2 weeks. After some interesting incidents in the pre-labor room, Doc decided to induce labor. There is nothing quite like laying there in all your "glory" and hear (from above)" hey Kathy, how's it going?" WHAT? Turns out that one of our clinic clients was the head maintenance man at the hospital and just happened to be working on the air conditioning! Gotta love a small town, right? I won't go into all of the details, but 16 1/2 hours later Cait arrived, all 8 1/2 pounds and 23 inches of her! (keep in mind that I'm only 64 inches tall lol) Doc cracked that it was a good thing she came early, or she might have come out walking. As they settled me into my room just after Midnight, my manager and her husband stopped in - they were on their way back from a party in Austin and wanted to check on us. The nurse told them to go on in and say hey. Like I said, only in a small town! The next day, we must have had 20 people in and out all day. I played the gracious hostess and had a ball. The nurses kept telling me that I might want to rest, but I felt great. Boy, I should have listened to them. As we drove off the following day, the terror and exhaustion finally hit after all the euphoria. I realized that I had NO idea what I was doing and neither did DH! Lucky for us, Cait was the easiest child I have ever been around.



We were blessed with a child who smiled and laughed almost the entire time she was awake. She was also a ham - if she started fussing, all we had to do was get out the camera and she would break into a huge, cheesy (or in this case) carroty grin!

As you can see, she began critiquing music at a very early age . . .

Her first cassette player. We actually still have this. Who knew it would lead to a life long Ipod addiction? It's a shame that Ipods aren't as cheap as those little cassette players!

She has always loved the camera, and the camera loves her. . . .

From Little Mermaid (see Marty, I did sew some once upon a time!) . . .

To High School Drum Major - Cait has always loved to "dress up" . . .

From "Middle School Good Citizen of the Year" . . . .

To High School Gangster - NOT . . .

From meeting a favorite performer . . .

To being a featured performer . . . . (click to enlarge if you'd like to read this)

From meeting Tigger at Disneyworld . . . .

To marching at Disneyworld in the Main Street USA parade . . .

From proud high school graduate . . .

To confident, strong and accomplished college student!

It has been such an incredible journey raising our beautiful daughter. It took us many attempts and failed pregnancies before I was able to carry a child to term. God knew what he was doing, he blessed us with the most perfect daughter we could ask for. She has grown into such a poised, intelligent and talented young woman. Happy Birthday baby girl - we are so proud of you!