Birthday Day

Today L is 4!

I think it was around the time of her sister's birthday mid-winter that the questions started coming... "When will my birthday be here?"

I told her that when the snow melted and summer came, her birthday would come too.

At least once week she would wake up and fly to the window and check to see if snow had melted.

When spring came and cold rains melted away dirty snowbanks, she smiled knowingly and said, "Now it's my birthday."  I told her that we had a few more months to wait; I told her it needed to be really hot before her birthday would come.

And then we got really busy and had school endings and trips in the month of May, and the questions stopped for a little while.  And then very suddenly, the day was upon us!  When we started asking her this past weekend what she wanted for birthday dinner, she started to get really excited, and her excitement grew and grew and she laid in bed wide awake and thinking about birthdays until almost 9 last night, and then she was up with the sun this morning around 5:30 (she is napping peacefully right now, thank goodness).

The night before her birthday we made her requested dessert-- wookiee cookies from our Star Wars cookbook.

M tweeted this photo to Peter Mayhew... and he favorited the tweet!!!  Big excitement!!!

The day started in the regular manner of eating breakfast and getting N ready for school.  N had this card all made for her sister before breakfast:

"Tinkerbell" written in the cursive that N likes to use

I love the person saying "Wooooo!"  And the backwards p's :)

As I was waiting out at the bus stop with N, I was thinking of exactly that moment four years ago (can it really be four years?) when we were just about ready for her to come...

Laboring in the tub

...and then, at 8:30 she came!  I remembered those joyful moments when I got to hold my second precious girl for the first time.  (Today, I announced to her that she had officially turned 4, as I walked in the door from getting N on the bus.)

Later today, we celebrated by bringing some wookiee cookies to share with friends at the park:

When we came home, we were so hot from playing outside on this 85-degree day that we had our lunch downstairs in the cool finished basement.  (It was a really hot day the day she was born, too! although I didn't notice since we were in hospital air conditioning and time sort of stood still for us that day, in the best of ways... but everyone that came to visit brand-new L was sweating after coming in from outside!)

We ate some of L's favorites... cheesy broccoli soup with oyster crackers, and pickles.

Then we settled down for afternoon rest time, as always...

After everyone woke up from naps we opened a present from the neighbors...

...and when Daddy came home we enjoyed L's requested birthday dinner of mac and cheese (from the box) and corn on the cob, while picnicking and watching L's requested movie, Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

To top it all off, Auntie Bethie stopped by after supper with a new Goldie Blox present for L.  Super exciting!!

It was another wonderful day of watching her enjoy the world.  Every moment that she has been with us has been that way.  I found myself thinking a lot today about how, despite the occasional scuffle with sisters or otherwise pushing mommy's buttons, she is such a wonderful friend to all of us.  It has been so neat having that close bond that began when I first held her, and has been sustained and grown over these four years, so that I'm one of the people who knows her best in the world.  She's our zany, ham of a little girl, but she's also getting very mature and deep and thoughtful, and I enjoy our conversations so much.  That day she was born was amazing, but it has only gotten better since then, and I can't wait to continue being her "best friend" as she becomes more and more of an interesting person and grows into adulthood.  She certainly is special!  Anyone who is her friend is a lucky person, and, well... I'm lucky to have her too.

Happy birthday, my dearest girl!!