Go Mandy - It's Your Birfday!

I can hardly believe Amanda is 25. Okay, well - tomorrow she'll be 25. I always think about her birth beginning on Halloween because that's when I went into labor. It was a whole 'nother world back then.

I called Amanda on the way home tonight and she was shopping (that's my girl) for something to go with the dress she's planning to wear to the Marine Corps ball. It struck me as funny because I had been out shopping in the early evening on Halloween when I felt what I thought might be contractions. We sure as heck weren't going to any ball, though. She was looking for purple shoes, among other things, and that was proving difficult.

Amanda was Suzanne's first child as much as she was mine. She would run to Auntie Suzanne's first thing every morning once she was old enough to figure out how to slip out of the house without waking me up. She knew she could count on being spoiled rotten by her auntie.

She was - and still is - a fiesty, independent, opinionated, intelligent, beautiful and funny girl.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MANDA : )