My baby girl is really, really not a baby anymore.  I can’t believe 6 years have gone by.  What a wild ride it has been.  Fun, exasperating, challenging, fun, did I say fun?  She’s this crazy mix of a kid, warm, loving, snuggly.  Painfully shy, yet bold.  Funny, yet reserved.  Above all, she is very, very soft hearted.  She loves animals more than anything in the world, she always has.  She’s just like her daddy in that way, and he’s just like his grandpa.  We all predict she’ll be a tree hugger who changes the world some day.  She loves to think up ways to reuse things, loves the earth, digging in the dirt, being outside, soaking up the sun.  Yes, she was ahead of our curve and crunchy before the rest of the family was.  Animals, I keep coming back to animals, because it is such a huge part of who she is.  We call her and Jase “the clones”, they are so much alike.  Some days I search and search watching her, looking for any traces of me, but I see only her daddy.  Taryn is our honeymoon baby.  We planned and dreamed about her for so long.  We came home from hawaii with such high hopes of being pregnant, we tested and it appeared as though we weren’t meant to have a honeymoon baby.  A few weeks later, that dream came true, yes, we were impatient.  She arrived and was instantly loved by Ty, 8 years old and SO ready for a sibling.  I had no idea how much that little baby was going to change our world, how much joy and laughter and exhaustion she’d bring to us.  I love her so much, I dreamed of her for so long.  I’m so thankful that I get to be her momma.  She has the best laugh, genuine, and big.  We often joke that she lacks a filter from her brain down to her face….no….you never have to guess what Miss T is thinking, she wears it for the world to see.  She scowls better than anyone I know, and she knows it.  She’s had her challenges, this year, and we could not be more proud of her and how far she’s come.  She’s tackled her fears, she’s tried new things, she’s jumped in with two feet first.  She’s resilient, way more so than she thinks she is.  She reads so well and her face lights up when she does.  She gravitates towards the dogs and would be perfectly happy being with them every second of the day.  She loves to play the wii, cut, color, paste and 9 times out of 10, if she’s not hanging out with Kylie or Maggie, she’s writing or creating.  She writes entire books and staples them together.  She draws the best pictures of our family.  She can hula hoop and jump roap and hopscotch like nobody’s business.  I love the way she dresses herself and the funny outfits she chooses.  Age 6 brings us from baby to toddler to little kid to girl.  A little walk down memory lane, snapshots from the last 6 years….

Happy Birthday sweet T, we love you!