Hey Bag Lady ;)

Today is my kid sister's birthday! When I think about April B. or Prilly, or the Apie, as she is sometimes called, I first think of her innate fashion sense. April has always known 'What looks good.' I distinctly remember running out of the house on my way to a field trip and having April hold out a sweater that she'd pinned a big fat broach on. "If you're going to wear THAT, will you at least wear THIS over it?" I think she might have been eight years old then.

April belongs to the 'no offense' club when it comes to fashion advice.

When she was little she used to lug these gigantic bags around. She was BoHo Chic before the Olsen Twins had stopped saying "No Way, DUDE!" It was a common occurrence for her to drag a bag or two to the car, carefully climb into the car, reach down to grab the bag and fall back out of the car because the bag was so heavy it pulled her down. She might have been in diapers but she was stylish.

On a trip to Vegas when April was about four she lagged far behind us, again with more bags than we would have needed for a beach picnic. The bags just seemed so heavy and she was so small. Taking pity on her, my mom and I went back to help her carry a few. When we picked them up we almost fell over too! She'd been walking along the Las Vegas strip picking up decorative landscape rocks and filling up her bags! That was the day we officially started calling her bag lady.

Now that she's all grown up her sense of style has changed a hundred times. She's always throwing together this or that, but the bags remain a staple of my April.

This set is straight from my sketchbook, and in just under the wire. My mom reported that my sissie tore open the presents I'd sent at the stroke of midnight last night, when she had just barely turned 23. When I asked April about it she defended herself by saying "Well, it is MY birthday and my birthday starts at midnight!" So this post happened on her birthday, March 9th and that is what counts ;)

Happy Birthday, kiddo. I love you. I think you're the tops.