Dolly turned 5.

"One thing have I desired of the LORD, that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in His temple."
Psalm 27:4

Six months ago - and a day- my little girl turned 5. Now in just a few short weeks, she'll be going away to school every day. Some things are bitter sweet.

I was just unpacking a box the other day which turned out to be more of my desk stuff. And there, amidst all the rest of the paperwork, were a whole collection of pictures that I hadn't even scanned to post yet. So, since yesterday we saw the fireworks and tomorrow we're going to visit our Nomads and I won't be around to work on the camping posts, I thought I'd pick a picture to scan and post. Dolly's happens to be the earliest picture in my collection of dust acquiring photos.

You can see I needed to trim her bangs - I actually got around to that the very next week. Just not in time for her picture. It's hard to remember what stages she was at half a year ago, but I can summarize her a bit now. She can read if she makes the effort. She'll insist that she can't read if there's any chance you might read the said matter to her. Dolly loves to mother Butler, and she is a huge help to me around the house. The rule is she's not supposed to carry him around, so she spends hours entertaining him wherever he happens to be. And that can be a pretty tough job sometimes.

She loves any kind of water and will get wet no matter how cold it might be. Beach, lake, pool, puddle - it doesn't matter to her. I'll breathe easier when I know she can swim though. I'm sure there's more, but I need to get our stuff together for the drive tomorrow. Preferably with some time left to sleep tonight too! Below is the extra pose we got with her package photo above.

Our little lady.