Happy Birthday, Beautiful!!

It's hard to believe that 4 years ago at this very minute (4:37pm), our little Eliana Leiveka was born. It doesn't feel like 4 years have gone by, but they have. She is no longer a baby or a toddler, she is turning into a little girl!

She has gotten a birthday dress from Uncle Robert the last few years, and this is the beautiful dress he made her this year. She wore it to church yesterday. It is lovely!

We celebrated her birthday with two parties this year. The first was a princess party on Saturday morning with her little girl friends all dressed up like princesses! The second was Sunday evening with some friends who were not so keen on donning gowns for the event. ;)

Some of Eliana's favorite things at 4 are... kitties (she was SURE that she was going to get a kitty on her 4th birthday because her best friend Josie did!), swimming, "ballet-ing", the color purple, sparkles, sprinkles, being silly, and playing with her friends.

For her birthday, Eliana got quite a few gifts from relatives and friends! This is the first year she has actually understood what money is and does, so she was very excited to receive money from several people! She got some birthday money to spend from Aunt Nora, Martha E., and Grammee and Grandad. She told me she was going to use it to buy two trees for her room that go in pots and don't grow. One green and one purple. We'll see how that goes. ;) She also received some dress up clothes, some books, a princess bathtub barbie, a game, legos, an educational interactive wall poster, stamps, and more! Best of all she remembered to say thank you to everyone who came to her parties and to everyone for her gifts! It makes me happy to see her turning out to be a polite little girl!

Happy 4th Birthday, Eliana! We love you!!