Celebrating a Decade of Eve

On July 10, 1999, following a punishing 3 1/2 hours of pushing (and an excruciating 10 minutes of crowning!), Matt and I had ourselves a princess, the glorious girl we know as Eve, who will always hold a special place in our hearts because she made us parents and rearranged our lives in such a fabulous way. The feeling I had after taking such a beating was that she'd better be beautiful, smart, funny, kind, welcoming, generous and every other positive adjective imaginable because I wasn't EVER going to do that again. And though I obvious did do it again, several times over, she's never disappointed.
Because her siblings have never known a life without her, Eve's golden birthday may not be fully appreciated. But we, as the parents who have vague memories of life before Belly-Boo, have reluctantly said good-bye to year nine (as Matt calls it, Halfway-To-Out-Of-The-House), and are strapping ourselves in as we usher in the tween years with this gorgeous, friendly, funny, sincere, hard-working girl.

As a family we celebrated at the Build-A-Bear Workshop, and followed it up with dinner at Noodles 'N Company (if you're not local, you haven't lived until you've had their Wisconsin mac 'n cheese and a tangerine cream soda. Trust me)...

Eve's had such a great year: did beautifully in school, swim team, student council, choir and piano lessons, which she layered with Activity Days and playdates and horse camp...she's a great friend and sibling par excellence. Your kid is great, too, but I truly couldn't live without this girl: she's just a loving little nurturer who loves to do for others, and every dang day with her is a true gift.

Watching her at Pirate's Cove with the people she loves the most was a true treat. I love watching these pure souls enjoy each other so much; the moment itself was great fun, but the warm fuzzies came from the vision of this gang being there for each other as they enter the thorny thickets of adolescence...it warms my heart to see her choosing to surround herself with such stellar personalities.

One of her many nicknames is the Laugh-A-Nator 2000; what could be more perfect?You hope for the best when you decide to take the incredible gamble of bringing a life into this world...every parent loves their child unequivocally, and can't imagine what life would be like without him or her. But with Eve, every prayer was answered, every wish fulfilled, every goal realized, and it's like our hero Bono says: "I want the lot of what you've got/And I want nothing that you're not." If everyone could grow up to be like Eve, what a wonderful world it would be.