Growing Rice: She's 4 years old!

Four years ago today my beautiful blue-eyed baby girl was born- Sophia Hayden Rice; our precious fighter. She is everything I had hoped for and more, obviously. She has an over-the-top personality, and her wit surpasses mine, for sure..she's absolutely hilarious. She loves to collect things such as rocks and leaves when we're out on "nature walks", and is currently talking about the planets non-stop. She loves to learn new things and look things up on the internet. She'll ask, "mom, where does snow come from" or "where does electricity come from?". So I will google a youtube video about the process of snow being formed or about electricity. She has been asking tough questions lately; questions I'm never prepared for (but i can't think of one at the moment). You can tell her something once, and she seems to remember it for a lifetime. Except when you tell to clean her room or brush her teeth...she never remembers that. She uses mature words constantly that she has heard us say ("oh, that's very unique"), and her spanish has really developed over the past year. She probably understands more spanish than I do at this point. She can spell and read small words and can write her name perfectly. I feel like she is developed beyond four, but I'm sure every parent feels that way, right? lol We're quite proud of her, :)

As I reflect over the past four years, I can't help but think about her entrance into this world; The happiest and scariest day of my life. A day that we weren't 100% sure our first baby would survive. Let's not recount all the sad and scary details because this is a happy post, and our amazing four year old is healthy, happy, and hilarious! But, I do thank God for bringing us through that scary time and for giving us the privilege of being her parents and raising her for as long as we have her. It's been four wonderful years of loving, laughing, and learning. She's so caring, gentle, compassionate, and sensitive and also loud and outgoing. I love everything about her!

A few through the years starting around 8 mo.