Hard to believe but my baby is now 16. Yeah, not sure how that happened… but well, time waits for no one.

We surprised her though, and had our long time friends come over for cake and ice cream, games and Chinese food! She had no idea. Maggie is not big on parties, so she had said she wasn’t looking at some big party so Jess and I just played along and told her we’d just do a nice dinner and maybe a little cake or go out for ice cream and she was happy with that. She was sure surprised when everyone came over. Even her Dad was in the ruse, and was there at the first and she was super pleased and excited. It was delightful.

For as long as we’ve been Toledoeans… (is that a word?) my kids and our friend’s kids have celebrated birthdays together, at least some little get together. Because the younger ones, Maggie and JB are in the month of April and the old ones, Sarah and Jessy are in the month of June. So it works out nice, we find some point between the two and just have a little get together. Dinner, cake and usually some games… like Mah Jong or Settlers of Cataan.

Right now, we’ve found a new game… it’s like Settlers, only a bit less demanding and quicker to play rounds. We’re sold… it’s called Carcassone and it’s named after a French town. It’s a tile game that you draw land tiles and place them to get points by building little Medieval cities and monasteries and the likes. It’s very addictive and fun.

Maggie got a lot of nice things from all around, a new spooky story telling game, some books, a few checks, some new jammies, a lovely birdfeeder, a neat book about making sock animals and more. She got a whole bunch of 50 cent pieces from her old mom here… because the kid loves coins and is saving up a whole giant glass pig of coins for some special plans.

One of her birthday books intranced her so much that she read the whole thing in a good long day and night… a first for Maggie and I was so proud of her! She is my daughter after all! (ha ha ha) Honestly, it was a wonderful thing to see her finally getting into books and getting lost in them. She’s had a lot of difficulties and this is a major plateau for her! One of many great ones to come!

Maggie’s birthday was Thursday and then all weekend she was working on the sock animal book… and I just have to show off some of her first attempts! She gathered up some of Jessy’s old silly socks and then spent a little birthday cash at the dollar store to get a few more to play with. She’s trying some of the patterns out with older socks and then plans to make some others with the new socks.

She worked all weekend long and this is her first little collection! They are SOOOOO cute! She got a little grab bag of buttons at the craft store today and they are going into the projects to make them just adorable! It’s a great book and she’s teaching herself to sew with it!

Aren’t they silly and cute??? I love the little piggy!!!

Maggie’s doing great and she’s just going to keep doing better and better. It’s tough on kids when they fight autism but it’s just something that makes little milestones like reading a whole book through and teaching herself to sew that just really make my heart sing. I don’t care if she ever makes it through college or if she wins the Nobel Peace prize or if she gets a high paying exec job. I know that she will keep learning and growing and reaching those milestones, maybe not as fast as some, but trust me, she doesn’t give up and she’ll make it there eventually.

She told me later that evening, that it was the best birthday ever!

And i believe her.