Funny...

"If you never did, you should, these things are fun and fun is good." If people were summed up in quotations, this one from Dr. Seuss would be Natalie's life mantra.

Today she is five and how fully she embraces every opportunity. In this brief time she has been in the world she has taught us so much about pure joy and squeezing every last drop of goodness out of each day.

She is always the one with the map. Since she could barely scribble she has been designing maps to varied locations, both real and imagined.

She must have some living thing, small or large, insect or infant to care for. She flits from caring for beetles and lame butterflies to concocting elaborate play spaces for Baby Will...

She is desperate to be first at everything, losing a footrace, no matter how close reduces her to tears. But as bloody as the competition between she and Adam sometimes gets she is quick to pull him in for a hug or urge him to join her latest adventure...

One minute she is lovingly putting her doll to bed or singing Adam a lullaby, the next she is furiously throwing a football, digging holes to "China" in the sandbox, cheering on a bug race, rolling down the hill, oblivious to how dirty and banged up she emerges....

Her sense of humor is spot on, a mixture of slapstick (she will willingly run into a wall or door if it will garner a laugh) and sarcasm...

Her room most often resembles the aftermath of a tornado but she knows where everything is...

She rarely puts on a dress without protesting but on very special occasions the only thing she wants to wear is her Cinderella dress...

Her face is either wreathed in smiles or furrowed in concentration. Everything she does she puts her all into it...

She makes us laugh, makes us proud, brings us such deep joy...

We love you Natalie Elizabeth, HAPPY 5th BIRTHDAY!!