Even a handful of sprinkles can't hide the fact

that my name isn't Grechen.



It's only been, what, ten years?

Other than that, though, it was a fantastic twenty-eleventh birthday. I came home to a living room draped in orange and yellow crepe paper and a dining room prepared for a queen:



I even had special decorations gracing my place at the table:



There was overflow seating for short guests at this table, whose centerpieces were chosen by Charlie.



And the guests were stunning in their high-fashion:





It was a great party. Grechen would have loved it.

***

As I started to load these pics, I snapped some great shots of Dixie's toothless self, but, when I tried to get them to load into photobucket, they weren't on the card. When I put the card back in the camera, however, I can see the pics. Perhaps the camera was so overwhelmed with the 145 pictures Dixie took that it decided to hold them hostage. (and, gee, I wonder why my camera batteries are always dead?)

But here's some of her best work, starting with the new Lite Brite and the wreath they made recently:





I was recently asked how Dixie got cat scratches on her face and answered, "She won't believe me that ballroom dancing with a cat is a bad idea." Here is another bad idea involving the cat:



Poor guy, can't get a moment's rest:



Wait. Can that really be this cat, less than six months later?



The other cat has better hiding skills:



While I am throwing random pics in, here they are at their Thanksgiving party, pilgrimified:



There were no fewer than fifteen self-portraits of her navel. Perhaps she is contemplating it?

Navel, plain:


Navel, with funky flash features:


She also appears to be perfecting her profile pic for some future MySpace account she won't be getting: