Happy Birthday Shelby!!!

Today is the day!!! This day at 6:14am three years ago our sweet baby girl took her first breath in this world! I can hardly believe that three years have gone by already. How fast does time fly!!! It seems like just yesterday that Pratt and I were heading to the hospital and now we have two precious little ones and neither of them are babies anymore. My sweet Shelby, you are so precious to me. I thought that in honor of today I would post a few pictures from the past three years. Unforunately I didn't have any digital pictures from the first few months so we have to start in May 2005. Look at how little my baby girl was. This picture was taken Memorial Day weekend. I remember it like it was yesterday.

2006 started off with a bang as we celebrated Shelby's first birthday. I think that we went a little crazy on the invite list, but it was so much fun and Shelby had a great time. I thought that she would really love the cake part, after all, don't all kids like cake no matter how old they are??? Well, Shelby proved that she was her own little girl when she cried and cried. I thought that I might have scarred her for life after that cake incident and she didn't eat anything with sugar in it for years. This picture was taken the morning after her first birthday day. Again, look how little she was. It is amazing to me to watch the changes in her on a day to day basis, but when I go back to the beginning it is incomprehensible to me all the growth that she has gone through.

In 2007 we took things down a couple of notches for her birthday since we had the great homecoming of JP. This picture was taken at Snow Day at Shelter Cove Community Park. I hate to admit it, but I don't remember too much from that day as I was terribly sleep deprived and more hormonal than I care to admit. Anyway, look at how sweet and innocent Shelby is. She had won the flower at this little carnival type fishing game. She was so excited and carried that flower around for days. I remember when we brought JP home from the hospital the first thing I noticed were how big her hands seemed to be. When I went into the hospital to have JP her little hands were baby hands and when I got home, she had little girl hands. Now looking back at all these pictures I realize that she still was a sweet baby girl.

And now to the present....this picture was taken this morning as she unwrapped a few gifts from us. We started the day with the traditional rendering of "Happy Birthday". Followed by some good ol' hanging out. We had a wonderful relaxing morning with no rushing out the door since Shelby didn't have school today. She ate pancakes, two frozen ones (and I mean literally frozen as she likes to eat two while the rest are in the toaster oven heating up) and four toasted ones. Then she sat down and had a bowl of cereal with her daddy. A little later on she had some jelly and bread. She sure can eat, can't she!!! While JP took his morning nap Shelby and I played with her magnetic dress-up doll and Chutes and Ladders. Then we went upstairs to dance to some music.

I tell you, I couldn't have even imagined how much having a daughter would change my life. It just opens your eyes to a whole new world, but most importantly it showed me even more how great God's love is for us. I mean, can you imagine, he sent his son to earth knowing full well that he was going to suffer and die on a cross so that we could spend eternity with him. Of course, the glorious part of that story is that Jesus rose from the dead. Praise God for his infinite wisdom and grace.

Lord, thank you so much for sending Shelby to us. Thank you for trusting us with this most precious gift. You are so amazing and mighty. The heavens and the earth and all creation declare your praises. Thank you so much for Shelby's laugh and the twinkle in her eyes. Thank you that she is already learning so much about you and your love for her. Please bless her little life and give Pratt and I wisdom to raise her to be a godly young lady. Amen.