FOUR!

I hardly can believe it but my L is four! It sounds so cliche but it is so true four years ago my life was changed for the better. L has given me so many gifts by simply being the unique, fearfully & wonderfully made girl that she is. Linnea constantly amazes me by her patience, her selflessness, her kindness, and her desire to do good. I love how logical she is, that she isn't content until she logically understands the why.  I love that she asked for a human anatomy kit for Christmas, and I love that she loves clothes simply because pretty things make her happy. I love that she is sardonic, dry witted, and finds irony hilarious. I am so proud that she gets along with everyone, but that she never compromises herself to do it. I can not begin to explain how much I love it when she says, "Mommy, I will keep this conversation in my heart for a long time" after we discuss something important. I love listening to her prayers, and I love that she reminds me to always hope, to trust God in everything, and to lift things in prayer.  Linnea amazes me, humors me, and challenges me to be a better person each and every day. Everything about her is exactly what Joe and I needed.

For her actual birthday we did our annual decorating of the dinning room for when she woke.

She was so excited when she saw it. Ran right over and exclaimed in her heart melting, grateful way, "You did this for me! Thank you so much! It is beautiful!"

I love her bed head, makes me smile every morning.

We then made her favorite breakfast waffles, but eating did not commence until after blowing out some candles.

It was her birthday so she even got a juice box for breakfast.

I can't get enough of how thankful she is for everything. I often wonder how I got the most grateful kid on the planet.

Then she got to open her first present before going to school. We decided to once again have her open her presents through out the day instead of all at once. It seems to make her birthday a bit more special, and allows her to have time to really enjoy each gift. Because she is a delayed gratification kind of person it works well.

She wanted to teach Hannah the art of present opening

Let the lessons commence!

Both were thrilled to see the lego set be reveled. Hannah's thrill was a bit more vicarious.

 She wanted to wear her "special, rainbow birthday dress" and got another unthinkable treat-gum before going to school. She spent a good portion of the morning singing at the top of her lungs, "I'm FOUR!" A dance accompanied the song.

 Joe took the day off and was thus able to walk our very happy birthday girl to school. Later that morning Joe, Hannah and I surprised L by showing up there for her special birthday school celebration. She announced our arrival with the following, "My grownups are here!"Sadly I didn't bring any means to photograph her school celebration and sort of got so caught up in the day I forgot to document the rest of it. We let L dictate what to do after preschool ended and per her request came came home and played with her new toys with her all the while adding a new gift to open.  For dinner we all enjoyed her desired shrimp, calamari, scallop scampi over angle hair pasta along with  vanilla ice-cream & rainbow sprinkles for dessert. All in all it was the perfect low key celebration for our very special girl.