Four and still the baby.

Our adorable baby just turned four!  We are trying our darnedest to keep this child little.  I'm pretty sure that this winter's introduction to the Star Wars series hasn't helped much.  There's a lot of talk of killing and death and the wielding of light sabers around here.  Leave it to my dear husband to infuse our home with a high degree of geek factor.  As if the odds weren't stacked in that direction in the first place.  Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about.  Let's talk about Eve! 

She had her first birthday party with friends this year.  We opted for a snowflake theme and I scheduled it for a school day so that my older kids would be conveniently out of the way and I could run the show my way(but I'm not controlling, or anything).  Appropriately, a huge snowstorm merited the cancellation of school that day and we hunkered down for an awesome snowflake party as the blizzard swirled around us outside.  But only after the kids had spent a couple of hours sledding to their hearts content.

Eve is such a joy.  Sometimes I chalk it up to the fact that she is my youngest and I can let things roll off of me more easily, but mostly, I am bewitched by how cute this daughter of mine is.  She knows it, too.  She says so herself - to herself - while we're brushing teeth in the morning.  "I'm cute!" she exclaims.  Guess it's time to lay off that particular compliment for a while.

Back to her birthday.  She chose pizza for her birthday dinner and made life ultra-easy on her mother by opting for Costco cupcakes over some elaborate homemade cake design.  Here are four things I love about Eve at this age.

1.  She is like Tigger.  I know it's age-appropriate to bounce around instead of walk, but I simply can't keep this girl's energy contained to putting one foot in front of the other.  It made for a heck of a lot of spills during our recent weeks of snow and ice, but I just love watching Eve bound from here to there and everywhere.
2.  She will eat just about anything!  Her favorite snacks right now are greek yogurt and bananas.  And when you have a child like Lily, this trait is particularly appreciated.
3.  She has this nasally little voice with a lisp that is to die for.  I love to extrapolate her thoughts because you just can't believe that such profundities can come from such a sweet voice.
4.  She understands deep things, so deep she can't always articulate them.  Tonight we were reading the story "Strega Nona" and, halfway through the story she had identified the theme (obedience) and was truly concerned for Big Anthony and the punishment that awaited him.  When we discuss gospel matters, she gets it.

Eve is a light in our family.  We eat up her enormous round eyes and independent spirit with delight.  Happy Birthday Evie!