Yesterday we had a lot of fun celebrating two decades of Lillia’s life! It’s so hard to believe that much time has passed already. This year is bringing big changes. In just a few months Lillia will graduate from high school, and then she’s off to college. We’ve got a good list of schools she’s interested in—now we just need to get to work on getting ourselves organized so we can start applying.

It’s absolutely mind-boggling to realize that, by this time next year, Lillia will be a couple of months into her first year in college. She’ll most likely be living somewhere else, and we probably won’t get to see her on her birthday, at least not in “real life.” I wasn’t thinking about it at the time, but this might have been Lillia’s last birthday at home. I’m so glad we kept up all of our fun traditions—like our birthday ring, cape, and crown—all the way to the end. Earlier this year, I bought another package of the birthday ring animals so that each kid can take a set when they leave home for good someday. If Lillia has children, I hope she’ll continue these traditions with them, too.