Morgan Rae is FIVE!!

Morgan Rae, how can you be five already? You light up the room with your smile sweet girl. Everyone asks us if you smile all the time. Our response is usually something like, "well, not quite all the time, but usually for others!" You really are a happy girl overall and we have been extremely blessed by your easy going personality, but this year you are definitely expressing some strong personality traits and you definitely don't let your siblings walk all over you! You are an emotional one, especially when you get tired. I was bracing myself for lots of tears with the start of ALL day kindergarten, but you've actually handled the transition pretty well so far.

As I've blogged about many times before you have had your own sense of fashion since the age of two. You are great at matching things now, but you definitely have your own idea of what you want to wear. Skirts it is right now!

You love to be a "baker" as you call it. You love to help me in the kitchen and taste everything! This is your favorite recipe to make because you mix the cookies with your hands and then you get to lick them off:)

I sure do love spending time with you sweet girl. I'm sad that I don't get to hang out with you in the afternoon anymore now that you are at school all day. We miss having you around! You love to do everything with me. We went through a period this past year that you needed to be with me all the time. You would be completely distraught if you were left at home with daddy.

It has been fun watching your relationship with your cousin Annika develop over the years. You are only 5 months apart, and you two have a lot of fun together. You will now disappear upstairs at Nana and Papas to play with the beanie babies and dolls. Annika looks up to you quite a bit, I pray that you will always be a good example to her!

You embrace life girl. You get super excited to have special time with daddy or I but you really don't demand it. When you do get that time you are actually pretty quite. You will talk when you decide there is something you  need to share, but you are definitely ok with silence. I think there is a lot that goes on in that little head of yours. You are very imaginative and creative, so I often wonder what you are thinking about.

You do love your daddy time again. You love to wrestle with him when you can get him away from your brothers. I am looking forward to watching your relationship grow.

You and Brooky sure have fun together. I love that you have a little sister to be girly with. She looks up to you Morgan and I pray that you will be a good example of girl who loves Jesus for Brooklyn to see. You two now share a room...a very PINK room and I think you love being roommates!

This year you grew so much. You loved preschool and did really well meeting new people. You loved all the pretend play and the art projects that you got to do. In fact your biggest complaint about the first day of kindergarten was that you didn't get to play enough:) You also learned how to ride your bike without training wheels and now you love to ride your bike. You and Ethan head outside almost every morning lately to ride bike. You are doing awesome with a two wheeler!

You and Ethan....you are the imagination behind this guy. I think in some ways he would be lost without you. He loves to have you watch him bike, rollerblade etc and you usually gladly play along and give him an audience. I love that about you. You two sure know how to fight sometimes though. He has been a sweet brother these first few days of school and sits by you on the bus and walks you to your classroom in the morning.

You became an awesome independent swimmer this summer. You don't use floaties at all anymore, not even in the deep end. You can jump into the deep end and swim to the edge. You love it and have had a lot of fun swimming with your friends and cousins this summer.

Morgan, your daddy and I are so proud of the little lady you are becoming. Today you got your ears pierced and you looked so old sitting in that chair. I know that I will blink and you'll be in high school. I am doing my best to soak up all these moments with you and embrace you where you are at...good and bad;) I love you sweet girl and I am so glad that God made you perfect for our family.