Day 4,062

The Katesy's Fifth Birthday

Our beautiful and one-of-a-kind Lady Kate is FIVE!!

*GASP*

I can’t get over how fast this is going.

She arrived into this world boldly, defiant, and ready to go, and honest to goodness, she hasn't changed a bit since. I hear it's a middle child thing and I believe it! Gulping water she shouldn't have, requiring undivided attention thereafter, having the loudest lungs and the coziest cuddle, my Katesy is everything.

She's the center of it all, the loudest one, always having the most fun and somehow finding ways to make a  rukus. She's strong-willed, silly, especially curious, detail oriented, and acutely aware of her surroundings. She says things that will have you laughing for days, does things that will have you scratching your head for hours, and sings things that will melt even the hardest of hearts. 

Ella Mae is the babe with the most nicknames, the one with the most interesting and pressing questions, and the child with the most funny home videos. She's the underlining queen of the Bible and loves sitting next to me while we study in the morning. She's an incredibly talented athlete with the ability to pick things up rather easily. She loves to dance. She loves to sing. She loves to dance and sing at the same time, at all times, in any place imaginable. Including on the Taekwondo floor at practice. She enjoys the beach, blue raspberry Twistee Treat ice cream, pink everything, swinging, writing her ABCs, and going to "church class."

Watermelon is her favorite. White sauce chicken Alfredo her second favorite. She likes riding her bike, going to the library, watching the Tampa Bay Rays, ANIMALS OF EVERY KIND, long dresses, and heels.

She's the glue to her siblings and the problem between her siblings too.

She's so completely lovable, so completely adorable, so terribly stubborn, and still so much my little baby. She's wild and carefree and friendly and anxious and unrelenting and loud and pure. And I wish I could bottle her up and keep her like this forever. Ah, she's just so great. So frustrating at times. But oh my word, so great.

Our new birthday tradition: making your own birthday cake! And this time, we got to show Grandma how we do it! She even got to help us with the hardest parts of make-your-own-birthday-cake making.

But then it was all out Ella Mae. In charge of every last sugary morsel on that pile of funfetti rainbow chip love.

We were pretty impressed with the initial rendition.

But as time went on,

the five-year-old decorator personality came to life.

And since her birthday fell on a baseball game Tuesday, she got to celebrate with her beautiful cake creation with all the siblings at the baseball field!!! Oh, what fun! 

And to top it off, Bearett got his first kid-pitch base hit on Sissy's birthday, in front of Grandma and FaceTime Papa!!

What a sweet five years it's been.

And what an incredibly sweet blessing you are to us, Ella Mae. You have so thoroughly enriched our lives that it's impossible even muster up the words to define the amount of love we carry for you in our hearts. The Lord was kind in abundance when He brought you into our lives those five years ago and I'll always remain deeply thankful for and touched by your little big life.

We love you, we are proud of you, we are encouraged by you, and thankful for you.

My prayer for you is that you'd use your incredible personality and particular giftings from the Lord and use your life to lift high the name of Jesus. I pray that you would be utterly captivated by the wondrous Creator God, who made you so uniquely and purposefully in order to bring glory to Him and not unto yourself. That you would seek Him, love Him, pursue Him, delight in Him. That your constant inquiries about the ways of the world would serve as a sweet and gentle guide to knowing Him better and recognizing the weight of your sin more fully. You are so intelligent, so curious, so gifted. Ella Mae, I pray you would funnel all that you are toward faith in the only One who can bring you everlasting joy, peace, love, and hope.

I love you Lady Kate. So much.

Happy birthday, my sweet and sassy girl.