(This is a day late, but adulting has been hard lately for me so here it is.)

This sweet, precious, special firstborn of mine turned eleven years old yesterday… and even sitting down to type that sentence made me emotional.

There’s a lot to be said for how this gift of a girl made me a mama, and all the lessons in faith, resilience, and quiet beauty she’s taught me. But I literally have five minutes to write this tribute post and if I start crying now, I’ll never make it on time so I’ll just stop it there.

I think back to E’s first years when it was just the three of us – her, me, and J (look how young and skinny J is btw!!) and I have such a FIERCE love and protection for this little one.

She was with us in our early-marriage apartments, through J’s law school, there at his graduation … she moved into every single home we ever owned with us. She was our experiment, our child we learned through, made trials & errors with.

With her, our hearts expanded and our faith grew. She challenged us to look at life and our priorities differently than we ever thought we wanted.

We’ve spent more time laughing with her and crying (over worry) for her than we have for any of our other kids. The path with E was harder for many different reasons but it made the sweet moments all the more precious (her first words, her first sentence, first days of school, etc).

She loves magic and Disney and traditions and LIFE. She lives every single day with the biggest, best grin on her face.

I still don’t always know what’s on her mind BUT as the years have gone on, she has made such big leaps in being able to communicate what’s on her heart. Spoiler alert: most of the time, it’s sunshine and rainbows. She’s just a happy kid, what can I say?

She loves Jesus, and girly things, and her family … and still asks me to pray for her at bedtime every single night.

I cannot believe she’s 11 and my eyes wonder at the beautiful, poised, young lady she is slowly blossoming into. Happiest of 11th birthdays to my precious firstborn, Emmy. I love you always to the moon and back, sweet one.