This is my norm

We had so much fun celebrating Hayden turning 6 years old. I still fumble when I try to say that she is 6. That sounds so foreign and old. Yuck!

We hung crepe paper so she would have to bust through it to get out of her door the morning of her birthday. She loved it and it was the perfect way to kick off her birthday.

She lucked out this year with her birthday falling on a school day. (I never had a birthday fall on a school day and always wondered what that would be like.) I whipped up some yummy ice cream cupcakes  (thank you Pinterest) for her school friends and ate lunch with her. She requested McDonalds.

Her sisters had picked out a tiara and necklace for her to wear that day and we gave her a Barbie fashion sketch pad. Super fun for our little artist.

While she was at school that day her dad and I were furiously racing to finish assembling the birthday gift we had gotten her (and her sisters). A trampoline! It came down to the wire but we finished it and her surprised face as we pulled up to the house made it all worth it!

After we all bounced our guts out, she wanted to celebrate at Incredible Pizza.

Sunday rolled around and Hayden was so excited to finally get to go to church. Our church has its own happy birthday song that we sing to everyone and she had been talking about it all week. She was smiling the biggest smile while everyone sang…wish I had a picture of that one.

Then we finished up her weekend celebration with a lunch at Red Lobster and of course…..they sang to her there too.

This picture shows exactly how amazing the weekend was. They were plumb tuckered out!

It’s 3:44 a.m. and you are officially six. Wow. A 6 year old??? How did this happen??? I really feel like yesterday we were roller skating around the rink celebrating her being 5. I was just as in shock at how that felt, then,  and now I have to say, “six year old”???? What in the world!? That sounds CRAZY! I feel the same way I did when I first had to say my new married name. Like my mouth won’t even properly form the word.

Hayden, slow down!! You are the most amazing child. I never could have imagined that my child would one day be YOU. You have taken every vision that I ever had of what being a mom would be or what my child would be like and thrown them out the window, and then exceeded every expectation I could have ever had. You embrace every single moment and make it as amazing as anyone could ever imagine. You see things in a way that some adults can’t even see. You comprehend things that I don’t even sometimes comprehend. You are like girl genius embodied. I feel like I have to give people a warning label before they meet you because you are so unique and amazing and unlike any other person I have ever known. And people immediately love you. How could they not?? That fabulous smile and those warm brown eyes just wrap theirselves around our hearts.  I love you in a way that I never knew could exist.

Thank you for making me a Mother. I didn’t have a clue what I was missing and cannot imagine a second without your little life entangled into mine.

Shoot for the moon, little wonder…and then keep going and never stop.

This seems so long ago http://munsons.blogspot.com/2005/10/she-is-finally-here.html