Birthday Girl!

Happy Birthday, Courtney!

You're doing so many fantastic things -- working towards your PhD, doing math problems that take up a whole page, your work in the lab, Relief Society President, making time for friends and fun in the city and making time for friends who come to visit. You have a beautiful, broad perspective of love and I admire how you can eloquently express your love for the Gospel, for the Savior and for his children. From a young age you've been confident in your knowledge that God has a plan for you. What a gift that has served you well in working toward your goals and creating new ones! When life gets hard, you don't give up. You admit your struggles and then get to work. Or sometimes you sleep or eat mango sorbet and then get back to work. I love you. I love seeing you become you. I'm grateful to call you not only my daughter but my friend. 💕

Thought it would be fun to have a look at past birthdays!

Chicago 1997 -- The rocking pig!

New York 1998 -- I was so proud of the Ernie cake!

1999 Summit, New Jersey -- The day before we moved to California. And butterfly clips!

2000 Bel Air, California -- The piñata I made that broke on the first hit!

2001 Los Angeles, California -- The Barbie "rolling" backpack--I never quite understood what a rolling backpack was so I ended up buying you a Barbie bag on wheels which turned out to be not at all what you wanted because it wasn't a backpack but was actually a suitcase.

And your face saying, "I feel very awkward bringing a suitcase to school."

2004 Salt Lake City, Utah -- Hula Hoop champ!

(And notice Marsha's house is still there!)

2005 -- Rockreation

I flipped through my journal to see if I wrote anything on my 24th birthday. I didn't. But I do remember...

We were living in Dallas, Texas in the townhouse-style apartment we moved to because we didn't want to be living on the 3rd floor after we had a baby -- too many stairs to haul up a stroller and a baby and groceries! I was pregnant, but we hadn't told anyone yet. We wanted to wait until the 8-week mark, which was approximately September 12.

Gram and Papa came from New Mexico to visit and for my birthday they gave me placemats that matched our dishes. I was SO THRILLED! I remember thinking they were the greatest thing ever-- the sophistication of using a placemat, but in the fun style of our dishes.

Then we told them that we were having a baby! And it was their turn to be SO THRILLED! We worried a little about how they would react because we knew we were young and Dad was new in his career. But of course as they always were whenever we told them about a decision we'd made, they were 100% on board, supportive and super excited!!

Hard to believe that baby is now 24 herself and also doing things that I am SO THRILLED about!

Here's what I looked like about then: