Clara's 4 Today!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Clara! My baby girl is 4. Last night as the kids were getting ready for bed, I started to get sad knowing the next time I saw my baby, she would be 4! I know it wasn't as if she would morph into some unrecognizable thing overnight, and I should be proud of the young lady I am raising -- but all I could think was, "What happened to my baby?" I asked Clara to snuggle with me a few minutes before bed. "Why?" she said, sensing that something was up with me. I explained that it was the last time I would get to snuggle with 3 year old Clara, because in the morning she would be 4 already. She told me it was OK. "It is?" I asked. To which she replied, "Yeah, 'cause it happens to everybody!" (Was this supposed to help?)

Either way, we had a fun-filled day today -- Clara got many surprises, including flowers from Daddy since he wasn't able to be home. She put them in her bathroom next to her sink so she could see them whenever she misses him. Jonathan followed behind her trying to get a sniff of the flowers. They were beautiful. I was worried that her birthday wouldn't measure up to ones in the past with no one here to help us celebrate, but we did good and she said she had a good birthday. I took something like 87 pics just today -- I've shared the best ones here, but broken up into several posts so they'd all fit. We wish you all could've been here to help us celebrate the beautiful young lady she's growing up to be, but this is the next best thing.