Today is Catgirl’s birthday, so she’s really been on my mind for the past few days. At times like these I want to yell from the rooftops just how wonderful my kids are, but words can’t really even contain the awesomeness of these kidlings. So how about a few pictures?

When she was about a year old, the kids went with John to Hogle Zoo and had some photobooth fun (she had such big brown eyes and was curious about everything!):

Even as a toddler, she loved to play dress-up. Back then that usually meant dresses (and usually they were purple–this is an exception to that rule):

Here’s Catgirl on a fancy dress-up day in kindergarten. With her very best friend (they still keep in touch online even though they’ve been at different schools since first grade)

Catgirl has quite a sweet tooth, and her favorites have always been berries:

She loves the ocean and the beach. When she was small we would spend hours just digging around in the sand. Here she is on Christmas Day at Crystal Cove state beach a few years ago:

This, taken just as she entered her teenage years, with her post-braces smile:

And most recently, Catgirl’s award-winning self-portrait: