My Baby Sister's Birthday

 One fun fact about my baby sister, Amber, is that her birthday is at the later end of the Fast.  This means that while growing up, our parents couldn't eat cake with us if our birthday part was during the middle of the day.  It then meant that when Emily and I each turned 15, we couldn't eat cake either.  I'm pretty sure my mom tried to plan her parties to be later in the day so that we could all eat by the time to cake and ice cream were served.  I love my clever mom.

This year, Amber planned her own birthday party for 6:15am on Sunday, March 18, at Bob Evans.  Seriously.  Living 45 minutes away, this meant I had to be in my car by 5:30am.  She then found out that Bob Evans didn't even open until 6:30am (normally it's 6am, but Sundays it opens later) so I was able to get 15 extra minutes of sleep.  Kyle did not want to get up that early, so I made the trip down to my hometown all by myself.  What really got me about this 6:30am meeting time was: sunrise wasn't even until 7:40am!  Everything ended up working perfectly, though, because it took a while for our food to come.  The menu was very appetizing that morning, so I ended up getting more than I could even eat (and that's really saying something, if you know me)!  My mom even brought a giant sheet cake to share with everyone, but we forgot about it until after sunrise, so we gave Amber's friends cake to take home (I was impressed with the number of friends who came!  She's so loved!).

When Amber opened her birthday present (in a big bag), she pulled out two boxes wrapped in tissue paper.  The green one she handed to me and the purple/pink one she handed to Emily.  I was very confused since we were getting presents at Amber's birthday party (it was like we were little kids again!), and then she pulled out a little box for herself.  We opened ours and I got super excited!!!  A new pair of TOMS!  Emily got her first pair of TOMS - welcome to the club, sis!  And then Amber opened hers...and she had Girl Scout cookies.  I was then even more confused since it was her birthday and we got the better gifts.  Then mom explained that our TOMS were our belated Ayyám-i-Há presents and Amber already had hers at home.  All in all, it was a wonderful 19th birthday for my beautiful, smart, loving baby sister.  We love you, Amber!