Happy Half-Birthday!

For mother's day, my mother-in-law and some of her friends gave me a very generous and thoughtful gift - a gift certificate to a local nursery. What woman doesn't love flowers, trees and shrubs for her yard, right?

It was a perfect gift because I had been meaning to buy a tree to commemorate Grace's birth. As the tree grows, so will Grace and we will have something to measure time against...plus something beautiful for our yard (when she will no longer humor us by standing next to the tree and letting us snap thousands of photos of her).

I had a tree when I was little.


Not sure what kind.
Unfortunately, it was in a bad accident with a tractor and it did not survive.


Anyway, choosing a tree took a little leg work. Our only criteria was that it had to have pink blossoms...since Grace is a girl. (I know...if #2 is a boy, finding a tree with blue blossoms might be tough. We'll cross that bridge.) I went to the nursery and spoke with one of their people to tell me about what kind of trees they had, which would grow well in our area and which had pink flowers. That narrowed it down to about 15 trees. We googled all the options and after meticulously viewing the images of each tree, we chose the Yoshino Cherry for it's beautiful pink blossoms and it's graceful appearance as it matures. You are probably familiar with Yoshinos...they can be found all over Washington D.C. and in the quad at the University of Washington campus (my alma mater).

This is what our tree will one day look like...
at least as long as we can keep it away from rogue tractors.

Yesterday, was Grace's half-birthday. She is six months old!! I can't believe it. I just can't believe how fast the last six months have gone by.

As you can see by these pictures, I'm not the only one who celebrates half-birthdays...although I must admit I hadn't thought of a half-birthday cake (thank you Google for bringing me yet another excuse to have cake).

In honor of this momentous occasion, we measured Grace against the tree.

Happy Half-Birthday Grace Elizabeth!
You have made the past six months magical and memorable. Can't wait to see what the future holds for you...besides cake on your half-birthdays!