Love my Esther-girl, who is FOUR!

(More photos below in the next post)

My sweet, precious girl turned four today. FOUR! Aaaaccckkkk! It’s so weird having kids. They grow up! Since when was that allowed?!?!?! And at the same time, it’s the coolest thing to watch them grow up! That must be one of the biggest paradoxes in life: wanting your kids to stay young because those young ages are just so great, but also looking forward to watching what and who they are becoming. So, no, I don’t seem to be dealing with it very well!!!

Poor Esther was miserably sick in the two days leading up to her birthday and to her party, so she couldn’t even really get excited about it. And on the day of her birthday she really seemed to have turned the corner, seeming full of energy and no fever. But the poor kid wasn’t quite herself for the actual party, which was a bummer.

Niklas was the master chef. He made meatballs that I turned into small mice on each kid’s plate! Chips for ears, raisins for eyes, a curly fry for the tail. I was supposed to put pretzel sticks in there as whiskers but I forgot. Then we made chocolate toast sandwiches in the shapes of giraffes. That was the lunch. Then we played a whole bunch of games, and I realized once again how much I like doing that sort of thing (leading kids in kids’ games and hanging out with young kids in general). I have a knack for it, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately I was starting to feel AWFUL a few hours before everyone arrived, but I forced myself through it, fever and all. And I know for sure they had fun!

Then they ate chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing. Or I should say, one kid out of five ate theirs. These Swedish kids are just not used to really sweet sweets! I am proud of Sylvia, however, who ate her entire cupcake and could have eaten two more. Talk about a sweet tooth! Whoa!

After the party Esther did okay for awhile, then started feeling miserable again, poor kid. When I was getting her tucked in, she wanted to have a looooong conversation about the day and everything that happened, and she was just so cute sitting there talking to me about all kinds of stuff. When I got up to go downstairs, she said, “Mamma, could you talk to me a little bit more?” So we did. How could I resist?

I am so proud of my precious sweet Esther-girl. Mothering is incredibly difficult; harder than I ever ever ever thought it would be – and she is only four! But having Esther in my life is one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me. She is one of the coolest people on the planet and the times that she and I have together just the two of us are some of the greatest times I’ve ever experienced. I love having such a front row seat to what God is doing in her life, and I love the relationship she is cultivating – on her own – with Him. Today when I asked her what her favorite part of the day was, she said: Jesus! And when I asked her if she thought was going to get a lot of Christmas presents from her aunts, she said, “No Mamma! Jesus gets all the presents because it’s His birthday!” I just think that’s so cool.

Anyway, I’m just bragging on her. She is a great kid and I love her. And now she is FOUR!!!