Dear Savannah Rose,

Happy Birthday! I can’t believe my oldest baby is 7 years old. How can that be? I say that as each of my kids gets older, I know…….but where does the time go? I can still remember your birth (all 17 hours of labor) like it was yesterday. I find it so hard to see these years just flying by. It seems like you were just a baby and now you’re turning into such a beautiful girl. Today, on your 7th birthday, here are a few things I would like to remember about you and that you might like to know about what you were like when you turned 7 years old.

1. You are in first grade and you love your teacher.

2. You still love, love, love cheeseburgers with ketchup, mustard, pickles and onions, but you also like steak, ribs (but only the kind made by your Grandpa), broccoli cheese soup, beans (all kinds…….refried, baked), chicken tacos, mashed potatoes, cheese tortellini, onion rings (or onions of all kinds), pickles, pineapple, strawberries, applesauce and yogurt, etc. Oh and let’s not forget sweets!

3. You are very emotional……. pretty dramatic or should we say, passionate. The littlest thing will make you cry.

4. So speaking of being dramatic. You like to leave notes with drawings around to let us know how you feel. For example, you didn’t like that we were having lasagna and vegetables for dinner one night, so you posted four signs on the wall with tape……… ‘no lasagna and vegetables allowed’, then a picture of lasagna with a circle and a line through it, another sign saying ‘I am TELLING you’, and a final sign saying ‘from Savannah’ (with a mad face). We still ended up having lasagna and vegetables. And recently, when we were going to have an open house (since our house is currently on the market), I baked some cookies to make the house smell nice. I left the cookies out on the counter and you were SO worried someone was going to eat them all before you got home. I finished getting ready to go, came back into the kitchen for one last thing and saw that you put a sign by the cookies saying ‘no eating’. Hmmmm……..that would have been an interesting thing for potential buyers to see walking through our house (not the most welcoming sign we could have come up with). Anyway, those are just a few examples from this last year.

4. Your favorite color is still orange.

5. You are in dance company this year and spend 6 hours a week in the dance studio studying ballet, tap and jazz. You were in the Nutcracker this year as a Gingersnap and will be a dwarf in the upcoming ballet performance of Cinderella. Your favorite style of dance is tap (that’s mine too!).

6. Sometimes you just really like to have alone time.

7. You are scared of dogs.

8. You love your American Girl doll, Kit, that you got for Christmas. Instead of a birthday party this year, you have decided to have tea at the American Girl store in downtown Chicago with your sister, Matilda, Mama, Aunt Katie, Aunt Abby and your Gigi (Daddy’s mom). You will get to pick out some things at the American Girl store as your birthday presents this year.

9. You ‘ran away’ from home a month or so ago. You weren’t very happy with Daddy sending you to your room for something you had done to Matilda, so you packed your little zipper bag with some candy, your money, a necklace, your Chapstick and said you were leaving and didn’t want to be part of our family anymore. I think we surprised you when we said ‘ok, well, go ahead…….we will miss you’ and showed you to the door. You went outside, walked behind the garage and ate some candy (you thought we couldn’t see you, but we could). Then you walked towards the front of the house and just stood there not knowing where to go. After a little time, when no one came out looking for you, you eventually came back in and joined the family again. The lesson to be learned was ‘we shouldn’t say things we don’t mean’. I don’t think you’ll be running away anytime soon.

10. On your actual birthday, you are going out to dinner with Mama and Daddy all by yourself. Since there are four kids in our family, it’s harder for mama and daddy to get a lot of one-on-one time with you. You have chosen to go to Outback Steakhouse because you want steak and yummy dessert.

11. Your favorite friend at school is Vanessa.

12. You like scary movies. You really enjoy the Harry Potter series. You also like some more upbeat films, such as Annie, Frozen and the Wizard of Oz.

13. You want to be an artist when you grow up. But not just any kind of artist, an artist that paints murals.

14. You absolutely adore your new baby sister, Josephine.

15. Your favorite play time activity is still playing pretend and dress up with your brother and sister. It doesn’t always go smoothly, since you guys all seem to like to be the boss, but when it does, you guys have the best time!

16. You enjoy spending alone time with Mama going shopping, running errands or out to lunch (you LOVE to go out to eat).

17. You do very well in school. You’re really good at math, even though it’s not your favorite subject.

18. You love to help in the kitchen with cooking or baking.

19. You are very organized and like to arrive at places early (just like your Mama).

20. You recently took a trip to the thrift store with Mama and told me you couldn’t afford anything in the entire store! You showed me a purse you wanted and said ‘It’s $300!’. Luckily for you, it was only $3.00, so you bought it with your own money. It’s a very grown up looking purse and you are very proud that you look so mature (as you say).

Savannah Rose, you sure keep us on our toes. You are so much fun to be around and are turning into such a lovely young girl. We love you so much and I will never forget the day that you made me a Mommy. Happy Birthday to my oldest baby!

I love you from here to the moon and back again!

Love always,

Mama