It’s Noelle’s 4th birthday today. Oh wow! Time has really flown since that time when I had that itty bitty preemie baby. I only got to see her for about half an hour or so on the day she was born as they had all kinds of test and stuff they were doing to make sure she was okay. Also, I had some trouble after she was born and went into a bit of shock, so I was out of it for the first 4 hours. She was born at 6:30 pm. Once I was feeling okay to sit up, I was wheeled into see her and they were doing a test when I first came so I just sat next to her and rubbed her little hand and arm and sang to her. “The First Noel” was the first thing she heard from me after her birth. The nurse said it seemed to calm her when I was singing to her since she didn’t cry at all when they had to prick her and she screamed the other times. That has been the first song I’ve always sang to her on her birthday ever since.

This morning, she knew it was her birthday. She got up and came into my bedroom and crawled up into my lap and I cuddled her and sang “her” song. (She says the song is about her and how the angels sang when she was born and it’s about Jesus and the shepherds too.) After that, we got up and ate some hot oatmeal for breakfast (9 inches of snow fell yesterday and last night) and got ready for church. Just before leaving for church, we gave her the present we had for her for today (she’ll get another at her birthday party in January), a Faith and Friends doll, the pink one. Jeremy had to shovel the sidewalk and the van out and we headed to church.

We have some brownies in the stove and ice cream to put on top after they are done.