Taryn turned 4!

Wow, my baby girl is 4 years old. How can this be? It seems like yesterday we brought her home from the hospital, so tiny and so cute, our precious baby girl. I am amazed daily by her beauty, cuteness and grace. She is 110% girly girl. I barely remember life without her by my side; she is such a joy each and every day. She is totally into being a mommy right now. I understand this is a natural gift God gives all baby girls; there is just something so sweet about the way she holds and cares for her babies. If I’m not feeling well or one of the kids or Jeff is hurt or sick, she is there by our side to care for us, stroking our face or hair telling us that it’s going to be ok. On the flip side, she is by far the most stubborn of my kids. I hate to brag or sound ridiculous but our kids have typically been good kids, they’re obedient and well mannered, of course they’ve made mistakes but they’ve learned from them. Taryn is different; she challenges us, A LOT, and is whinier than the others (which I can’t stand) and I want to think it’s the third child (or youngest) thing and I know my older brothers would agree the youngest child gets away with more…blah blah blah… I used to argue this point with them but I now agree and understand what they’ve been telling me since I was 14! We would never let Kiarra and Jayden get away with the things Taryn gets away with. Even with the loosened discipline she is still a great kid…besides the fact that she cut her own hair when she “wanted bangs”, and cut her clothes when they “didn’t fit right” and lets not forget the time she spread gum ALL over the stairs… Ahh, the lovely memories.

Since I was going to be out of town for her actual b-day, we had a small celebration for her the weekend prior to her b-day. Mom came over and I made Taryn’s favorite meal, spaghetti, and we let her open the gifts we got her. It was then; right there in our family room that I really realized she is 4! FOUR years old! I’m just blown away at how fast she’s grown up! She was such a big girl when I told her I would be out of town for her b-day. She didn’t cry she acted as if she actually understood. If you’ve talked to me in the past 2 weeks you know how pissed off I was that I had to miss her b-day. I’ve never been away for my kids b-days... NEVER! I will always remember that I wasn’t with her on her 4th b-day… Ugh, this thing called a job!

This past weekend we had her real party and it was wet and cold. I originally scheduled it at the bowling alley but then remembered how much fun we used to have hosting big parties at our house so I quickly changed it. Of course that was before I knew it was going to be raining! It’s actually a good thing a few families didn’t show up because we were out of room in our garage. The rain held off all day...but yup you guessed it, it started drizzling minutes before the party started. It didn’t seem to bother the kids much; they still had a great time jumping and playing in the moonwalk and they enjoyed playing a few other games as well. We had a great group of kids, the majority of our friends have kids the ages of our other kids so there were only a few her age. That didn’t bother her a bit; she can run and hold her own with the older kids!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl! We love you LOTS!!!