Elle's 6th Birthday

Elle had a fantastic 6th birthday. She has been waiting a long time to reach this point in her life. “How long until my birthday?” she would ask me almost every day. This was a hard question to answer when it was over ninety days. But slowly—especially to her—the days became less and less, until it was finally the long, awaited day.



We started the official countdown for her birthday when she only had five more days of being five. Everyday she would wake up to find a new number on her door, telling her the number of days she had left until she was finally 6. This was a fun way to count down the days. “I wonder what the number will look like tomorrow,” Elle would ask each night.



On her last day of being five, we did our traditional sparklers. It is our favorite way to say goodbye to the old number, and welcome the new. The smiles and giggles from Hudson and Elle attested to that. (Although, I am a little upset with Hudson, because he burned a small hole in our trampoline with his sparkler—naughty boy.) They absolutely loved running around with the sparklers, and we went through five boxes total. They would have done more if I had had any. But five just had to suffice.



The day of Elle’s birthday was perfect. Even down to the very last second. Elle chose a rainbow theme for her birthday this year, and I tried to make everything center around it—except for her dinner choice of spaghetti and meatballs; that I could not center around a rainbow. But from the presents to the cake, everything had something to do with a rainbow—which by the way is Elle’s favorite color (she chooses rainbow, because to her that includes every color—even silver, gold and sparkly colors).



But I think the highlight of Elle’s rainbow birthday was that an actual rainbow appeared in the sky at the end of the day. It had been raining off and on all day, and when we were about to take her up to bed, a beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky.

“Hurry!” Johnny yelled. “There’s a rainbow outside!”

We all ran out immediately, and were stunned as we looked at the beautiful rainbow stretching across the sky.

“Wow!” Elle said. “Heavenly Father and Jesus made that.”

I smiled and hugged her. “They sure did.”

It was amazing, and none of us could believe it. It was the perfect way to end her birthday.



I am so happy that Elle’s day turned out to be everything she wanted. It was worth the two whole days it took me to decorate her cake. And it was worth those fifteen batteries I had to put in all of her new toys. And it was especially worth all the time, effort and money. It was a wonderful day.

I want to take a moment and say how much I love my sweet little six-year-old. She is such a joy in my life. She is imaginative and creative. She has a personality that is larger than life. She is kind, caring and sensitive. She is stubborn, short-fused and impatient. She is funny, sarcastic and silly. She is loving, helpful and thoughtful. She knows her mind, and there is no one—I mean NO ONE—that will change it. She is very determined, and focused. I love her desire to choose the right and to be the best she can be. She is an amazing little girl, and I am so glad she is mine.

Happy 6 Elle!

And as a side note, I wanted to say that last year we let Elle send off one of her birthday balloons with a wish; but when I asked her if she wanted to do it again this year, she said, “No. Last year I wished to be a princess, and that didn’t come true, so I don’t want to do it this year.”