A little Fairy turned FIVE today

Five years ago yesterday I only had one child; but five years ago today I woke up, got dressed, bid a bittersweet farewell to my little Bracken and Justin and I headed off to the hospital for an event we knew would greatly change the dynamic of our little family. The day that Abbie was born was a beautiful spring day in northern Virginia and I was extremely excited---albeit a tad irritated that my induction couldn't occur the next day on the coveted date of 5-5-05---to have this little girl.

She is worth staying up until 2AM making birthday party signs for...

(it says Fairy Abbie)

...and worth driving all over town to multiple Michael's to find the perfect items to decorate fairy wings and wands with.

I love her so much I am happy to bake hearts and bugs so her preschool class will know that she is special and today is her day.

She is amazing, and creative, and unique. She chose to spend her last night as a four-year-old in rainbow GAP pj's with a white leotard on over them, and a tutu over that. She finished the look with her favorite white cable-knit cardigan and struck these poses when I told her in the morning that I didn't want to forget the way she entered her fifth year of life (what's better, the hair or the outfit?).

She was celebrated at school and got to wear the oh-so-original "It's My Birthday" hat, but mostly she was just thrilled that the day to wear her Oopsy Daisy skirt had finally arrived. It had been hanging in my closet for a few weeks and she would go in to look at it, or try it on, but knew it was for wearing on her birthday. She got her special birthday shirt from her Aunt Jessie who shares Abbie's belief that a special event is merely an excuse for a new and equally special outfit.

She twirled and twirled all day long and never got sick of seeing the skirt swirl out around her. When it was finally time for her party I decided to release the panic I was feeling over the fairy wings that had not yet arrived via UPS (though the entire party was based around all of the girls in their wings) and to just enjoy the moment with her; I was aware of the fact that my beautiful little girl is no longer my baby. Something happens when a child crosses over from preschool age to being old enough for elementary school and it seems to happen right before your eyes. She is now officially a big kid and I love her.

Her friends love her too as you can see from the party shots. Most of her best friends were there in their best fairy attire and were excellent at shaking their wands and spreading fairy dust throughout the house. I have decided to view the glitter that I spread all around the table displays, and which the girls spread everywhere else and is now covering every surface of my home, as a reminder of the fact that today was special for us all.

Abbie is one of the six loves of my life and I hope that she knows that each and every day. She is her mother's daughter and I would not change one thing about her---given the chance I would have ended the day in some fabulous new shoes and an amazing dress too! {wedding apparel courtesy of grandpa who had to endure a zillion times of Abbie reminding him that's what she really, really wanted for her birthday if mom said she can't get such nice things just on a random trip to Target....who is that mean mom????}

Oh, and the UPS man did finally show up. Thank heaven.

Ketchup

So...I guess some of you have noticed that I had fallen off of planet blog, that became apparent after multiple months with no posts whatsoever. Yet, what you didn't know was that I was secretly trying to blog as frequently as I had before four became five but I could just never find the time to finish them. Jessie (who seems to know all of my secrets and passwords) was able to go onto my blog and view all of my drafts and was horrified to realize I had just not been posting the things I had been working on.

I guess I have been kidding myself to believe that a time would come when I would be able to perfect and finish these posts so instead I have decided to just post them all...if I can do that in the next five minutes without any children screaming, etc.

I know that it is annoying to look through a zillion old posts but I must say that some of the best pictures are on the oldest post, "Synchronized smiling" (it's like four posts back). Here's the catch-up...

Matchy-Matchy

Sadly, this is the best shot we could get. Ruby is only almost flashing everyone and at least each child is facing the camera!

Hey there Belmont Ridge Ward, remember this? --For those of you who are not in our old congregation in Virginia I will offer a little background.--- I'm totally one of those moms who forces her children to wear matchy-matchy outfits and I've taken flak for it in years past but I must admit that I fully embrace the WASPy trait. I love having three little girls and I LOVE it when they can all wear matching outfits to church. One year on Easter Sunday I was taunted mercilessly by a number of members in our congregation for having Bracken wear a shortall smocked outfit with ducks that matched my other two kids. He was only three years old---not even three and a half---yet I had apparently scarred him for life according to one man. Well, I've got news for you Brother Bower, I was not the first and I will certainly not be the last mother to just melt inside when she sees her children all dressed in their Sunday best matching one another and looking like a million bucks---which, by the way, is about what it seems to cost to indulge in matchy-matchiness.

When I was a little girl sandwiched between two sisters we often wore matching outfits too. In fact my girls have already begun to wear some of the Laura Ashley sailor dresses that my mom had for me and my sisters in the 80's. I guess we should all just be glad that I am not trying to also match my daughters as my mom did in her own sailor dress. Even I have limits apparently. Though I guess I should be careful with what I say because I am sure this will come back to haunt me and that one day I will be unable to resist some form of outfit coordination with my girls. However, on this particular Easter Sunday I can assure you I was not dressed in a pale pink smocked dress with embroidered rosettes.

do you think she is crossing her fingers and wishing I would stop taking her picture?

and Ruby has decided she is done

can you tell that Lexie is sitting in a Bumbo seat with her dress fluffed out around her, or does it just look like she's wearing a bustle?

bored to sleep by all of the paparazzi shots...and three hours of church

In the interest of full disclosure I guess I have to admit that these pictures were actually taken the week before Easter Sunday because we had General Conference on "real" Easter so we didn't have meetings to attend that day. Though it wasn't quite the same to get the kids all dressed up for faux Easter I knew I better take advantage of the girls all fitting these current sizes and use them as their Easter dresses. In fact, I would like to get as much use out of them as possible, anyone have a wedding we can attend in the next 2 months while Lexie still fits into her little dress?...I wish we could be at cousin Jennifer's but it's all the way in Utah...

Here's what we did the next Saturday to prepare for the actual Easter holiday:

we dyed Easter eggs on Saturday when we got home from the gym

this tray was Bracken's, he labeled all of his with the orange dot bunny stickers

Abbie, or ABIE, as it says on the egg...darn those tricky white crayons that you can't see until you've dyed the egg

bunny Bracken in desperate need of a hair cut

Tate carried these two eggs around for about three hours, his "sunshine egg and the green one". Green is definitely his favorite color these days.

don't I seem to be getting a lot of these kinds of poses out of Abbie lately? How can she already be turning into a drama queen at age 4?

Bracken showing me his muscles

Tate looking pretty tough but showing me more elbow than muscle

Ruby after dying eggs. She commandeered Tate's froggy boots at some point during the process. She loves them and wears them anywhere I will let her.

"Real" Easter morning the Easter bunny left the baskets on the front porch because he fell asleep early the night before and the kids came running down while he (or she) was still preparing them in the guest room. He had to get creative and sneak around the house from the guest room and put them on the porch.

Ruby doesn't even bother trying to bring hers inside before just digging in and finding her pink bunny peeps.

In case you are wondering Abbie is wearing a pink doggie backpack thing, not a harness

Tate heading in with the goods

Bracken showing off one of his treasures

judging by her face Ruby has found the Whoppers Robin eggs

Lexie in the cultural hall, aka the gym, at church during the primary Easter activity

The kids decorated paper Easter baskets before going outside for the egg hunt...I guess we should have done a better job of showing them which sides would be visible after they were fully constructed.

Madison Hoopes helping Ruby hunt down some eggs.

Tate looking a little flummoxed.

I got ten! I got ten! I got ten!

once they each had ten eggs they lined up on the curb to eat their cupcakes

all of the kids at the activity immediately sat down to eat all of the candy inside of the eggs even though we had made cupcakes do deter them from doing just that

Well, all five are in the picture but not even ONE is looking at the camera!!