Happy Birthday, Hannah!

Today is Hannah's birthday. I can't believe it has been four years already. She is the joy of our lives. It has been so fun to see her grow up this past year. She is definitely no longer my baby (in the physical sense); Hannah has apparently inherited the rest of my family's height genes and is much taller than most children her age. Sadly, she will likely pass me up in height much sooner than I anticipated! On the happier side, she has grown into such a sweet, funny, and wonderful 4-year-old it's hard to feel too sad about leaving her "babyhood" behind.

Some things to love about Hannah:

1. She likes to make up words. Some of her favorites include metarian, tap-a-doer, and eckerjump. The funniest thing is she remembers these words and uses them over and over as if they actually have a real meaning.

2. She also likes to use big words, such as "meticulous" and "essentially".

3. She says really funny things to me in public, such as "chuuubby little mama!" and "Hi, sweetie pants!" (that one while swatting me on the backside).

4. The way she loves her brother and gushes over him. Sometimes it's as simple as "He's such a cute little baby!" and sometimes funnier, like "Oh, Joshie, you're so righteous!"

5. She is confident and brave. She loves giving talks in Primary and bearing her testimony in sacrament meeting. She loves to pretend to perform whatever art form she's interested in at the time -- dancing, ice skating, you name it.

6. Her femininity! She is quite certain she's a princess and has refused to wear pants for the longest time, because princesses don't wear pants. Luckily, she knows that a princess is kind and obedient, and not bossy. She's also very particular about what feminine role she's taking on at a given time -- sometimes we call her princess, and she says "I'm not a princess, I'm a ballerina!" But my favorite is when she says "I'm not a princess or a ballerina, I'm just a Hannah."

Well, as further proof that "just a Hannah" is a wonderful thing to be, here are pictures from the birthday festivities this weekend.

We went to a tea shoppe yesterday for a real tea party; both children were extremely well-behaved and we were so proud of them. They had fancy hats in the ladies' room so that's what the children are wearing in the pictures (don't laugh too hard at Joshie; they didn't have any boy hats!)

Today some of our wonderful friends and neighbors came over to celebrate with Hannah by eating brownie ice-cream cones and watching her open presents. It meant so much to her to have someone there to celebrate her special day with her.

It was our neighbor Kiera's birthday today as well! So she got a special candle in her cone too.

Happy birthday Hannah! We sure love you!