....and pink cake.

My Lillie Belle turned 7. My baby girl is 7. I am not really sure why 7 made me stop to think, but it has. 7 years with a girl. I still remember the day I found out we were having a girl. Pink. Bows. Baby dolls. It feels like yesterday. Patrick and I had two precious boys and I, as surprised as I was having two little boys first, enjoyed each moment being a boy mom. Not growing up with a brother in my house, I still remember the shock of seeing Logan for the first time and hearing the Doctor exclaim, "It's a BOY!" What do you do with a boy? I thought it was a girl! I was supposed to be having a girl!?! As time went on though, I discovered you do much of the same thing with a boy baby that you do with a girl baby...or so I thought. I enjoyed every minute of having boys. I still do. I loved their little chubby legs running through my halls, their sticky kisses, and dirty fingers. I loved hearing their truck noises and their gun sounds. They would build and knock down, run and fall, jump off things and climb up everything. They were the spitting images of their Daddy and oh! How the three of them could wrestle. And I never could've doubted their love for me. When we discovered we were having another baby, I truly assumed it would be another boy. I remember kind of thinking it would be neat to have a girl, but that thought was quickly pushed aside almost with the same questions I had before having a boy; what would I do with a girl? We had all these boy things and boy clothes...and I knew boys. I loved boys. At that point, I really couldn't picture myself with a girl...until the day we found out the baby I was carrying was a girl!

Fast forward to last Friday, I was decorating Lillie-Belle's Hello Kitty cupcakes, pink cake with pink icing, and Logan walked into the kitchen to just hang out for a minute. "Is that Lillie's cake?" I told him it was. Watching me for a minute, we talked about Lillie's birthday. After a few questions and a few comments from him, he looks at me very seriously and said, "Mom you know the best part of having sisters?"

I could have guessed a million things. Hello Kitty birthday parties for one. Meeting Princesses at Disney World after so many years of meeting Buzz Lightyear and Captain Hook. The movies Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and Princess and the Frog. Pink rooms and dance classes. Hugs for brothers and quiet moments when a big brother reads to them. Watching big brothers hold little sister hands. Fashion shows. Helpers in the kitchen. Fingernail polish. Bows and French braiding again. My house softening for the addition of a little girl. Doors being held open and Barbie toothbrushes. Feet "dancing" on big Daddy feet. Screams, louder than I ever thought possible, at the sound of a Daddy's "scary" growl. Pink Zinka on noses at the beach and mermaid sandcastles. Promises to marry an older brother and lots of pictures to hang up. Pink bicycles with white baskets and little streamers from the handlebars. A daughter for my sweet man to walk down an aisle one day. Sweet smells and gentle hugs. Polly Pockets and Bitty Babies. The list in my mind goes on forever; as it does with my guesses for the reasons it is so great to have boys.

At that moment, I was so thankful for the gift of having both, but my mind was focused on my Lillie. She changed the dynamic of our home in one simple moment and the very dynamic of our family. She came in like a tornado, loving life and taking it by the horns. She has a strong personality and knows what "life" should look like. She loves everyday moments that we often miss and often retreats to "Lillie~land" as we lovingly call the place where only she is invited in her mind, where fairies are, and creation talks. She is strong, determined, and independent, but has a heart of gold. She doesn't like people to see her cry and doesn't like to see me cry. She can, at times, be painfully honest. She sings to herself, dances up the stairs, and loves, LOVES to push her Cole's buttons. She sword fights and plays a mean game of hide~n~go seek. She can catch a lizard with the best of her brothers, but has the prettiest pointed toes in ballet. She is wonderfully made and a perfect fit for our family. We couldn't have known it at the time when the ultrasound tech announced, "That's girl country right there!" (Can you tell our tech was from the deep South?) but our lives would forever be better because of Lillie Grace.

"I don't know, Logan. What's the best part of having sisters?"

"We get to have pink cake. It's so good." And he walked away licking icing off of his growing fingers.

I almost forgot...and pink cake.