She turned four on Monday. Four. Just one year from five. Wasn’t she just three? And now she’s four. She has such a strong personality and still so very girlie. We have many more fights than ever before…strangely enough, they’re usually over brushing her hair (she doesn’t want to cut it, but she doesn’t want me to brush it either) and the outfits she puts together. She actually has excellent taste and I quite enjoy watching how deliberate she is in everything she does. She’s playing more pretend now (my boys never really did that) and it’s nice when I get the opportunity to sit back and quietly spy on her imagination in action. She LOVES to talk about her boyfriendS (oh, dear me) and she is really good at keeping up with her brothers. That girl can match them in a fight any day–she’s cute, but she’s tough as nails when it comes to that. She still snuggles with her pink “dat” and she still sucks her thumb, though she is desperately trying to break that habit. She could read stories all day long and I wish I had more time to do that with her every day. But I do still tuck her in every night and every night, she manages to sneak into bed with us or her brothers. I love that she was born in November and right around Thanksgiving…I will always be so very thankful for her.

Every year, we do a birthday photo shoot adding a balloon. I’m hoping to continue this tradition until she’s 10, if she’ll let me. We had big plans of going into downtown Austin for this year’s image, but with the holiday season in FULL swing for me, I didn’t think that was going to happen until after Christmas. Thanks to the encouragement of my mom (who is in town helping me with the holiday minis this weekend), we managed to pull off a quick, but perfect little photo session tonight. Everything just came together and we didn’t even have to drive downtown. Thank you, Mom! I’ll have to share a pic of the birthday canvases on my wall 1-4 when year 4 comes in.

[P.S. This dress was made by my photog friend, Chantal, with Whimsy and Style Clothing. Her daughter wore this same kind of dress to their session earlier this year and I fell in love it with. Thank you, Chantal, for this beautiful, perfect creation!!!]