Birthday Take 1, 2 & 3

When I was in college one of my best friends, Amanda (Ray) Newman, introduced me to the idea of celebrating your "Golden Year". Amanda defined your golden year is the year you turn the age of the date you were born on...for example, my birthday is the 21st, so my golden year would have been the year I turned 21. Amanda's Golden Year was the year of her 19th birthday and this was in October of our freshman year. Her mom sent her a small gift every day until her birthday...I loved this idea...unfortunately for Ruth Ann she was born on the 1st of the month so the idea of a Golden Year won't mean much to her.

As a variation of the Golden Year celebration, Ruth Ann got to celebrate her 3rd birthday 3 times...

First on her actual birthday...at Disney...what a lucky duck!



And here she is rubbing it in everyone else's face...



Then when we got home her daddy had a birthday cake waiting on us...but we waited until the next day to light it up and sing Happy Birthday...





And finally, she got to celebrate with her friends at school the next week...I brought treats for Ruth Ann's class and since she goes to a church pre-school they pray before eating their snack...this picture warms my heart...



Then they sat down to snack...



And like many McCarty's before her, she was one of the last to get up from the table...



Then the whole class sat around Ruth Ann while she opened a gift...



And I also got a picture of Ruth Ann with her favorite friend from school...Jack. After Ruth Ann's parent/teach conference I learned Ruth Ann likes to play with the boys, and Jack is her favorite boy...her daddy is going to have his hands full!



And just so I can cry a little bit more about my baby girl turning one more year older, we'll take a walk down memory lane...here she is bright and early on all 3 of her birthdays...

1st Birthday...



2nd Birthday...



3rd Birthday...



The day before my mom had treated both Ruth Ann and Ada to a visit to the Bippti Boppiti Boutique for their birhtday gifts...this little princess fell asleep on the way back to the room (after 13 hours of Disney excitement) and stayed asleep as I got her ready for bed...she doesn't usually wear the crown jewels to bed and if you had witnessed the amount of product they used to keep her hair in that bun atop her head you wouldn't be surprised at all to see it still in a nice neat bun after 10 hours of sleep.

And even though the child celebrated on 3 different occasions and it has been 3 weeks since her birthday...she continues to tell me everyday it's her birthday. We're trying to distract her with Christmas...but I have a feeling she's going to be super sad the day after Christmas when she realizes her birthday is 11 months away!