How Could It Get Any Better...

...than this???

I look at these photos and am still in shock and awe that this child will be turning 5 in less than three weeks.  FIVE.  F-I-V-E! 

Happy and sad, all rolled up into one...happy because my little girl is growing up to be such a wonderful young lady, sad because my little girl is not so little anymore. 

I can't imagine what my posts are going to be like on her birthday and when she starts Kindergarten in a few months!  I think there may be a fair amount of stream-of-consciousness ramblings on both occasions.  So many thoughts crowding my brain, all jostling for the next opportunity to jump out onto my keyboard and into my posts. 

By the way, I was thrilled on Saturday to actually get a lot of real smiles from her in my photos.  She's learned, when you ask her to smile, to say "cheese" in the most insincere way possible, looking more like a crocodile enjoying his lunch than a happy child.  Like she's trying to appease me so I'll get the damn camera out of her face.  And when she does it, she tries to make my picture-taking life as difficult as possible by looking away from the camera at the same time.  Yeah, thanks.  However, I have, in turn, learned that if I am not getting the shots I want and I ask her for a happy face, she'll give me a true, happy-little-girl smile.  Yeah!  Thanks!! 

But in these shots, she was not doing it because I wanted her to.  She was smiling just. because. she. was. happy.