I woke up (late) this morning to cheery big kids asking when exactly we were leaving for their cousin's birthday party.  Abby happily told me "I'll go get my card."  As I'm chronically blurry-eyed for the first few minutes hours of the day, I told her "It's OK, honey, I have a card.  You can just draw on it."  The crestfallen look told me I had messed up already.  "Or you could get your card."  Bright smile again.  Whew. 

I was presented with two hand-made birthday "cards" (regular copy paper actually) that both my oldests had drawn that morning - without being asked.  Each card had lovely, pertinent drawings of birthday-related items (a first for Daniel who thinks SpiderMan is a must for everyone) and  - here's the big news - words on them.  For Abby this is a common occurrence, but still awesome to see such initiative and ability to write without asking me for help or spelling advice.  Not every word was correct, but phonetically it was right on.  For Daniel it was huge.  Writing is his least favorite activity, and it was all done on his own.  They sometimes do write stuff on their own, but not something as specific and timely as this until now. 

I am very proud of both of my big kids