My girl is FIVE.

When you sit back and think about how much life can change in just a simple year, its overwhelming.  I mean really think about it.  How many decisions we make each day that effect where we are in the next moment, week, or year.  How much energy we put into the things we love and how much luck stands with or against us. Five years ago today, I was sitting in NICU room 4 watching my 2 lb baby rest…just days prior we had given her her first real bath, where I held her entire body in one hand and her dad started teaching her his way of life by putting a small styrofoam cup on her head which actually was a bit too big.  It was SUCH a huge step forward for us, this bath.  A sign that she really was ours to love and care for, and that while she be but little she was FIERCE.  Our then two week old baby had changed our world in ways beyond our dreams in a short period of just days.

What seemed like a deep long hard part in life at the time, turned out to be one of life’s greatest blessings.  Her arrival restructured my brain for the better and reworked our live’s paths for simply the best.  It is because of her, I let go of something I thought I wanted and leaned into what I truly needed at the time.  Without her,  I can’t be sure I’d have pursued this photo thing so intently and deeply and passionately.  She has, hands down, been one of life’s greatest gifts to me.

This cheetah loving, fashion inspiring, princess dreaming, purse toting, energetic, enthusiastic, tiny girl with such a BIG personality turned five two weeks ago.  A whole hand.  Half a decade.  Old enough to start a phase in life, Kindergarten.   And boy was she ready.  It has been nothing short of emotional for her mom and dad, seeing her so excited to go and learn and be social and do all the things that she loves to do and has watched her friends do for a couple years now.  But it is indeed time.  And there is no greater joy in life than watching your child smile, knock down barriers, and grow into the beautiful independent happy people you want them to be.