Eliot turned 5 years old today…we can’t believe our baby girl is all grown up now!!! Well, I guess “all grown up” is a relative term – I guess grown ups don’t put on singing shows for their parents while wearing a princess night grown and singing to “A Whole New World” from Aladdin like Eliot did last night. And I guess most grown ups don’t request pumpkin pie for their birthday treat or pout for half an hour because one of their party balloons floated away while unpacking the car. And I would have to say most grown ups do not spend their evenings drawing pictures of their family, complete with rainbows, sunshines, smiley faces, and Daddy’s spikey hair.

But she’s definitely not the tiny six pounder who came into our lives five years ago today and instantly turned our lives upside down for the first of many times to come! She’s not the little one-year-old that I used to call “Two-Toofers” because of the two front bottom teeth that she flashed with every smile. She’s also not the toddler who used to run around the house on her tiptoes, used to use my stomach as a trampoline, once spread diaper rash cream all over her face and her stuffed tigers face because they had a rash, and each night at bedtime was never satisfied with just one book. And she’s not the four-going-on-thirteen-year-old who developed a taste for independence early on in life and made sure everyone around her respected that freedom. Nope, as all who have kids know, the changes come fast in the first years and with them new joys and an almost equal amount of headaches – headaches that only appear when you forget to laugh first! We’ve loved every minute of it, Little Miss Sunshine, and can’t wait to see what the next chapter in our lives brings!!

Happy Birthday, Eliot! We love you!

God Bless,

Ethan