Happy 40th Birthday, Janine!!

My little sister turns 4o today. Since she is the baby of the family, it makes me feel a bit old to realize all of my siblings are now over the 40 hill, but that could just be because as eldest, that means I am inching ever closer to the big 5-0.

In honour of her special day, which she is spending on a dude ranch in the wilds of the Arizona desert with her beloved and hopefully having a wonderful time, I thought I'd post a few photos of her over the years. She'll probably kill me but then again, she's on vacation and might not see these pictures for a couple of days and by then, it will be too late! :)

Here she is with my mom and me when she was just a wee baby - she looks like a china doll, doesn't she? (And check out that groovy poncho I am wearing, lovingly made by my grandmother. )

I can still remember the night my dad came home and woke us up to tell my brothers and me that we had a new sister. I had always known the baby was going to be a girl, as I already had two brothers and knew I needed a girl to even up the odds. Thank goodness that worked out!

She is shovelling snow in the driveway in this next picture. Check out the snowsuit and those cool boots (mukluks, I think we called them?). Even at that age, she was very fashionable.

Here's a picture of the four of us kids together, which I have included so you can see her ponytails. Mom almost always did her hair like this. She still wears her hair long these days but try as I might, I can't ever get her to do the ponytail look.

This very glamourous photo is her high school graduation shot.

And here she is hard at work putting in the dock at the cottage this past summer with her man.




And finally, this is one of my favourite shots of her and I together, taken in January 2008 at my cousin Wendy's wedding.


Happy Birthday, Janine! Wishing you all the best that life has to offer for the next 40 years! You'll always be my baby sister and I love you.

P.S. Did you know that Sesame Street, which Janine used to LOVE watching as a little girl, turned 40 yesterday?! Imagine being able to say you are one day older than Big Bird - now that's cool.