Four Years Ago Today . . .

Today is Annie's fourth birthday.

I want to write some moving tribute to the amazing person I've had the opportunity to parent for the last four years . . . or, at least, a funny synopsis of all her amusing stories and her adorable personality. But, I fear I wouldn't do her justice. She is smart, humorous, inquisitive, sweet, kind, compassionate, determined, vocal, opinionated and an amazing big sister (most of the time -- far better than I was ever though, so I give her huge amounts of credit.) She is a source of daily heart swelling pride -- and, at times, immeasurable frustration :-)

Four years ago today . . .

The first night . . . when we really figured out for the first time that we were gonna have our hands full. Despite all our intentions of 'rooming in' our entire hospital stay, it was about 3AM when we'd still never seen our little one sleep, that we asked the nurses to please come take her for a few hours so we could finally get some sleep.

Her first birthday.

Annie turns two -- check out her little mop of curls. So cute!

This was right before bedtime on her 2nd birthday -- Greg was putting together her new train set.
I was nine months pregnant at the time, and right after these pictures were taken we got Annie to bed, and about 2 hours later, my water broke. (Which means tomorrow you'll get a set of "Happy Birthday Ellie" photos.)

Annie turns three. Her bedhead gets better and better every year.
We started the tradition of birthday cupcake breakfasts.

And now she's four -- growing up too quick, in my opinion.
All morning she's informed us of things she should or shouldn't be doing because, in her words, "I'm the birthday girl!" She been so excited about her birthday this year, and we're all so happy the big day has arrived!
Here she is with her traditional morning bedhead, and she's just finished off her breakfast cupcake. At four though, she doesn't leave behind nearly as much evidence of consuming frosting for breakfast as she did last year.

Happy Birthday Annie Bananie! We love you!