Happy (belated!) Birthday to Julia!!!

Our sweet Julia turned 4 last Thursday! She was so excited to have a birthday, and also to move up to the 4 year old class at church today. :) We had a combined party for her and Josiah yesterday with my parents and Grampa. Julia and Josiah both received some felt food that my mom made, and they have been having a ball with it!Julia also got this adorable chef's hat, and a very cute little skirt which I forgot to take a picture of.Josiah got a take-along Cranky the Crane, which has been a hit with all 3 kids!

The birthday girl with her Snow White cake!

I am so thankful for our little girl . . . she brings that extra little bit of sweetness to our family and helps to balance out all the testosterone in our house. ;) I will never forget my surprise and excitement when she was born . . . to realize we had a girl!! (Because there are mostly boys on Jim's side of the family, and I kind of figured we would end up with all boys.) She stole our hearts from the very beginning and continues to give us so much joy. She also can be very dramatic (and sometimes drives her daddy crazy because of this . . . :)), has a wonderful imagination, is a chatterbox, and embraces life with curiosity and excitement. One of my favorite things is listening to her sing little songs and tell stories that she makes up, as she plays. She reminds me a lot of myself as a little girl, in this way!

She won't have her yearly checkup till the end of this month, so I'm not sure of her "stats" as far as weight, height, etc. now . . . but it does seem like she's been having a growth spurt lately! She's still quite petite, though. She loves to run and jump, and rarely walks anywhere--she is always gracefully leaping around. She tends to be accident prone sometimes though, so I guess she is not all "grace!" :) She loves flowers, dolls, music, Patch the Pirate, being outside, riding her tricycle, helping Mommy . . . lots of things. She is so much fun and we love her to pieces! Happy Birthday, Julia Anne!