Happy Birthday Grace!!!

Today is our cousin's daughter's birthday (Daniel's cousin on his dad's side...ahhh whatever...).

Sweet Grace is four today and has had a huge year this past year. She started off her year by becoming a big sister, she's lived in California for a baseball season, and she met Shaun Johnson!

The olympics spurred on a huge love of gymnastics for her, and with the way athleticism runs in her parents, we're probably looking at two gold medalists above...Gracie and her brother Drew with grandmother (the famous commenter...) on HalloweenAnd all of our cousins children on that side: Grace and Malia and Drew and Jaxon.

Grace is so wonderful and to me embodies what children should be: passionate, imaginative and carefree. When she was younger (and attending several showers between my sister-in-law and myself), she was consistently caught dancing, singing to herself, and twirling around in her dresses, which, we were assured, she did often.
doing a gymnastics routine on the beach...which, Stephanie says, went on for an hour and Grace would continue holding the pose until people clapped for her...how amazing!!!

I know she's an amazing big sister, she's a great cousin, she beats her daddy in croquet and I hear she used to be able to tell you every Cubs player just by their number, and then would proceed to tell you about their wives and kids, too.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRACE!!!! and way to cheer for the right team, even in the face of a devastating loss!!

all of these pictures are Stephanie's, stolen from the pictures she regularly and so wonderfully sends us...