5 (aka A Love Letter to My Firstborn)

Day 1! Welcome to the world!

One year old! About to sneak some food at your party, I think!

Two! What a precious girl!

Three years old! You requested strawberry cake again this year. 

Four years old and fearless!

Harper,
The day I found out that you'd be joining our family I instantly felt joy, fear, and anticipation. And I've felt all of those emotions throughout the time I was pregnant with you and through all stages of your development. I am not sure why but 5 has been a harder number for me to swallow. We've been anticipating it for so long, planning, but I've been fearing it, too. 5. Five fingers, a whole hand! Half of a decade!

Right now you look up to me so much. You trust me. You believe I can do anything! When we talked about not having a big party this year and instead celebrating with family your one request was to have a princess castle cake like the one in Publix. Then you decided you wanted to MAKE a princess castle cake with me. That you have that much confidence in my (seriously lacking) cake decorating skills is amazing. And I know I will fail you. And I already have. But I am so thankful that God loves you more than even I do. And he loves me. And even though I will fail and even though I fear so much I know that He is so good and He loves us more than we could ever ask or imagine.
You are SO amazingly kind. Though you, like all of us, have your moments, you continue to astound your Daddy and I with how sweet and thoughtful you are. You already have birthday presents planned for all the upcoming family birthdays until next May! You love your brothers so much and are fiercely protective of both of them. When we talk about someone who is sick or hurting or sad you stop everything and insist that we pray for them. You want to take action immediately to help. Your are such a do-er. And your Daddy and I both struggle with this, it amazes us that from the time you were barely able to put words together to form sentences you've been praying for people and wanting to go and help. Your drive and persistence and bossiness assertiveness all come together in a beautiful package that makes your such a caring person.
And you are brilliant! We are constantly amazed at what a great vocabulary you have, how much you know about birds and trees and flowers and animals, how you can retell a story we've read once from memory. You still love going to school so much and asked to go on your birthday even though I offered to let you play hooky! At school you guys are learning to journal. You can identify all of your alphabet, know some sight words, can count up to at least 50, maybe higher (and you always want to know what number is bigger than 100, bigger than 1,000, etc). You want to read so badly and are so concerned that you "can't read" but have faith that your Grandmother will teach you since she helps people who can't read. We try and tell you that you ARE reading, just not whole books yet, but you don't believe us!
You LOVE gymnastics still. Now you are getting to go on the high bar and beam and though you need to know the coach is there to grab her hand, you are fearless once you get to the end of the beam and swan dive off into the pit. You have also been asking to play soccer but we are only doing one activity at a time, so we'll see how the gymnastics thing goes first.
Harper- our family is so blessed to have you in our lives. It is hard to remember what my life was like without you in it. Certainly less boring and less loving. You still tell me many times a day that you love me and that I am beautiful. :-) You make my heart so happy. Happy birthday sweet girl!
WE LOVE YOU!