Excuse me while I wipe away the tears. A big girl lives in our home now. A big girl that plays kitchen, colored with crayons (and markers-brave Daddy!!!!) for the first time yesterday, says kitty-cat and ball (among other things), has ten teeth, and climbs up AND down the stairs faster than I do.

She is starting to learn about Jesus. She does prayer hands at the table before she eats and “sings” with us when we sing Jesus Loves Me at least twice at bedtime each night.

Another favorite song is Multiplied by Needtobreathe. You heard it here. Adam plays it at least daily and sings it to her, and of course she “sings” along. As a side note, I still weep when the freaking song comes on from the flood of motions from that day come back! #willthateverstop?

Her favorite books at bedtime are Wheels on the bus and Llama Llama Zippity Zoom. She does this weird tongue-rolling thing whenever we say the word llama. It’s absolutely awesome!

She is still a fish and loves the water. She will take a bath that lasts almost an hour some evenings! She will purposefully put her head under the water, loves to float on her belly and will even put her face in the water “pretending” to blow bubbles. She helps remove her clothes before bath-time, even her unders!

Her friends at Mama’s clinic adore her and even made a “toy shelf” for her during her visits! She’s become an expert blood-pressure-machine-rider and can run the halls with the best of ’em. I’m so thankful that even after all of the poking and prodding she’s had in the past couple of months she still doesn’t mind all of my partners and the nurse’s looking and listening to her. Such a big girl!

Because of her cow’s milk allergy, we have to be creative and she absolutely loves her Daddy’s home-made “ice-cream” (frozen bananas plus strawberries and peanut-butter). Other favorites include hamburger, avocados, bananas, pears, eggs, sausage, apple sauce, mama’s cookies, tomatoes and cutie oranges. Speaking of which, if anyone has any special recipes, please send our way! Especially for snacks…that is where we struggle.

She is not a cuddler-never has been but is very affectionate. She gives hugs and kisses (open-mouthed ones!) and then goes on her way. She’s a busy girl, after all.

She has horrible allergies that just started 6 weeks ago. Having never had myself, this is a whole new ball game to us. There are days her little eyes are just dripping and snot rockets are just shooting out! She had her first bilateral ear infections that wouldn’t go away on their own and required antibiotics (up until now, she hasn’t ever had any!). She needed breathing treatments at the beginning while we sorted things out and kept her inside to get things under control and have been “managing” better since. Honestly, she still isn’t good so we pray that her “season of allergies” will be short-lived! We’re hoping a new fancy air purifier in her room helps also.

She definitely has a few favorite toys. Bob, her lovey is for her sleep time only, Sally the seal came from cousin Colt and pretty much makes anything better in life so we save her for emergencies, Tina the “happy” (a round fabric thing that laughs and giggles at her) is EVERYthing to her and she has three baby dolls that she loves.

She goes to an in-home Christian daycare half to full days most days of the week and is home with Daddy the rest of the time. We can’t get her jacket off fast enough and she is scrambling away to play with her friends when we get there in the mornings. She loves her Ms. Sydney and sometimes doesn’t even want to come home!

And, she wore a skirt for the first time today…(Daddy just says to be sure she has bloomers on!). I say praise God for this child! Just look at her so full of life!