5 Year Old Baby Girl

Oh my, I just can't believe that my little Samantha is 5 years old!  It seems that just yesterday she was like this:

To my precious baby girl,

Samantha, I love you so much!  You bring a peaceful sense of joy with you the moment you walk into a room.  You've always had the gift of bringing smiles to people's faces wherever you go.  You certainly make your Mama's heart melt!

You've grown so much in this past year.  You've developed quite the little spunky attitude.  You sure know what you like and what you don't!  I love that about you.  Now if we can just help you to speak your mind without stomping your feet so much ;-)

You love art and pretend and performing.  You're always directing or starring in some sort of play or concert of your very own design.  You love to sing and dance....and your imagination is beyond belief.  I swear, you can come up with an entire pretend world with two of anything!  I love watching you play.   You also love helping.  Washing dishes and making windows sparkle are two of your favorite chores.

You have a sweet and gentle spirit.  You're kind and quick to comfort someone who might be upset.  You're a bit on the shy side in a big crowd, but as soon as you feel comfortable, you just bloom where you stand.  You flash that sparkly-eyed and dimpled smile of yours and suddenly all eyes are on you.

Little girl- you light up my life.  I love the soft warm smell of your golden hair, and the way your little body melts into mine when we snuggle.  I pray that your every dream comes true...and that you grow up to live no farther than about 10 miles away from your Mama!  

Happy Birthday, Sammy.  I love you,  Mommy

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We had a big bash for Sammy's birthday.  She's been telling me for about 9 months now that she wanted a "butterfly birthday" when she turned 5.  We did our best!  We started by inviting 20 (yes, TWENTY) of your little friends to come and play.  I think we had about 14...

I was sure to have your favorite dress clean and ready for the party:

 And we found the cutest little butterfly pinata!

I was up until 2 the night before preparing for your party, and I had a slight cake mishap that I thought meant certain disaster.  We managed to save the butterfly cake after all (frosting tip: put the cake in the freezer for an hour or so before frosting).  Sammy personally oversaw the decorating of the butterfly cake:

Since we had so many people coming, we also made a couple dozen cupcakes that the kids were in charge of decorating:

All ready for her friends to arrive:

"Mommy!  Watch me twirl!"

"Me too! Me too!"

One of my favorite birthday traditions is the mini photo shoot I do with the birthday kid.  They love their time in the spotlight:

I love that she still has these sweet baby girl fingers:

We had lots of fun playing pin the tail on the donkey, dropping clothes pins into mason jars, and coloring butterflies at the table.  You had fun being the star of the show when we played a slideshow of photos only you.  And the pinata - my favorite!  All the kids got their shot at it, and then someone jokingly said to me "You should give it a whack!"  Sammy encouraged me to give it a try, so I did.  And I gave it the death blow!  You should have seen the look of awe and admiration on Thomas' face when he came up to me and said "Mama, you BIIIG hit!" :-)  Made my day!

Singing to our birthday girl:

Happy Birthday Sammy!