Dear Grace {Happy Birthday}

Dear Grace,

Five years ago in the very early morning hours of July 17th I was working as hard as I knew how to get you into my arms! We had already waited 11 days past when your "due date" was. We thought that you would make your debut around midnight, so we called our families and they all anxiously waited in the hospital waiting room. And waited and waited and waited some more. You waited another 7 hours to come! They all slept there in the waiting room. Both sides of the family were so excited for your arrival. When you finally did come, you were white and had had the cord wrapped tightly around your neck and had to go immediately to the NICU for the doctors and nurses to help you. My arms ached to hold you and the few moments I got just weren't enough! I remember looking at you and falling instantly in love! The most of the time we were in the hospital you had to stay in the NICU and I only wanted to hold you in my arms and not let you go. Ever. I just wanted to stare at the beautiful little girl that was my baby.

We went home on Saturday night and spent the first night at your Grandpa and Grandma Carter's house because while you and I were in the hospital Daddy and our entire awesome family moved us from Provo to Salt Lake, and I hadn't yet been to our new apartment and we wanted to stay our first night with our new baby somewhere familiar. That Sunday we went to Sacrament Meeting and I held you close the whole time, trying to protect you from all the people and germs around us. I remember being horrified when a man I didn't know really, really wanted to hold you and I eventually gave in and handed you over to him. My heart raced and I watched you so carefully wanting to grab you right back and protect you, but I didn't. Letting go was hard then, and it's a lesson I've been learning your whole life.

Now you're 5 years old! I am still learning about letting go. The other day you wanted to jump off the diving board into the pool all by yourself and I waited in the pool for you to help you if you needed, but I let you go and do it all by yourself. You didn't really need my help, but I was there waiting and wanting to hold you in my arms if you wanted. A while back you learned how to climb our backyard tree. Again, it took all I had to not wait at the bottom every time to catch you or help you if you needed, but you could do it all by yourself!

I know that we have many more years of letting go coming. I will try to let you go and explore the world and do things, even though it will probably be hard for me! I just want you to know that I will always be here to help you or catch you if you need it. I am so blessed to have such a good-natured, tender-hearted, thoughtful and beautiful little girl to call my daughter. I love you more than you know!

love forever, Mama

Grace's 5th Birthday Party

Saturday was Grace's 5th birthday party. She has been looking forward to her "5 years birthday" for a looooong time. It's the first party she's gotten to have with friends. We had it here in the backyard with lots of water to keep cool in this 100 degree heat.

The night before we started getting ready.

 

 Grace helped bake the cake, make the frosting and lick the beaters.

 Rob did an ultra-amazing job decorating. Don't you just feel like you're under the sea in our dining room?

 I decorated my first cake that wasn't a complete disaster! It helps that I just stuck the plastic Ariel and friends on :). The trick is not just dirty icing the cake, but refrigerating it after dirty icing it so it gets hard.

 We had buckets of water balloons and squirt guns at the ready.

We may have had to bust the extra frosting out a few times to cover the tracks of little fingers that just couldn't keep themselves off of the cake.

 

 We got all tatted-up under-the-sea style.

 Benji looked fresh in his shark duds.

 Look at that big standing studmuffin of a baby!

Rob decorated from the front door all the way to the backyard. He's pretty much the best dad EVER!

 We started off playing Pin the Tail on the Whale that I made.

After each activity the kids got gold doubloons for participating.

Next was a water balloon relay that turned into a free-for-all that I might have instigated against Rob :)

Next we played water gun freeze tag.

 And again, Rob looked a little overheated, so I suggested that the kids help him cool off :)

The whole crew

 Grace loved getting to open presents from her friends and was very sweet and let Ruby help her.

Finally everyone got to take a swing (or 9) at the mermaid pinata. She was hard to break!

 The girlies.

Happy Birthday Gracers!

4th of July

 We had an awesome 4th of July. It started off with a ward breakfast with our friends from church complete with yummy food, games and even face painting!

 There was also a parade for the kids with decorated bikes and scooters.

Go Ruby, go!

The night before I threw together some skirts for the girls to wear since we were pretty low on patriotic-colored clothing. You can't really tell from here, but Ruby's skirt is  blue with tiny white polka dots, which is sort of reminiscent of stars, so the two skirts together make an abstract flag :)

Love this funny little puppy! My favorite thing is her drawn in tongue hanging out of her mouth. So stinking cute.

That evening we met up with our friends, the Hamiltons for Frisco City fireworks at the town square. I did a bad job at being photographer though, because I didn't even get a picture with them! The kiddos all had a great time with their glow sticks and staying up super duper late.

 Of course Grace danced to the music.

 And if Grace did, that means that Ruby did too :)

We walked around the booths they had out and at one they were doing Dance Dance Revolution (or some game like that) and before we turned around Grace had jumped right in to shake her groove thing. That girl loves to dance!

 It was a super fun, busy day. This is what Grace looked like the next day:

Completely zonked! I guess it was a huge success!