Oh my heaven, look who is 7

I really can't believe that Amaya is 7. Where did the time go? I remember her being so little and weighing her on the little baby scale that my sister gave me. She was so small. We weighed her so often, wanting to see her grow and checking her weight because she would never eat, and when she did eat, she would throw it back up. How fast the time has seemed to have gone.

Seven years, I still can't believe it. She is such a nice young lady, so loving, caring and sweet. She very often thinks of others and is so sensitive that she will cry about something that has never happened, but the possibility that it would upsets her. She is beautiful! Our only girl. She is so loving that she would sleep with us every night if we would let her. She would let Ryan sleep with her if we let him. She doesn't want Jake to sleep with her. He is too close in age and he gets on her nerves sometimes, like any little brother would, but she loves him, and they are the best of friends, even though at this point she will not admit it.

She loves animals, she has always loved them. She has never really played with dolls or barbies, it has always been animals. Starting with Jake's dinosaurs, the little people farm animals and Noah's ark animals. At 2 years old she discovered zebras after watching Racing Stripes. Since then she has wanted a zebra, and for years, she ran around on all fours pretending to be a zebra or a horse, not even kidding. After learning and understanding that zebras live in Africa and not here, she changed her love to horses. This LOVE hasn't changed yet. Each year, she has asked for a live horse for her birthday. Obviously, she has not received it. She has MANY horses to play with, but it just isn't the same.

Her room is in the basement and to get her to actually MOVE to the basement, I promised her pictures of zebras for her walls. She got them, and moved right in. She sleeps with her zebra blanket, horsey,and her zebra pillow every night. She even has to have them when sleeping at Grandpa's house. There have even been a few nights that Grandpa shows up to pick up these forgotten items at 11pm so that she can fall asleep. These things are her LOVES.

She is definitely a nature lover... the animals, bugs and plants. She really gets into our vegetable garden each year, with the planting, watching it grow, and then the harvesting. She loves getting the caterpillar eggs, then watching them hatch, grow and change into butterflies. She helps pull weeds and one of her favorite things about nature is finding something like a bean, acorn, or pod of some sort and picking out the seeds, she can seriously spend hours doing this.

It is amazing how much she has grown over the last seven years. I swear it was just one year ago that she was so small and dependent on us.
We love you Amaya and are proud of who you have already become. I pray for a future of love, health and happiness for you. You are wonderful!

This is Amaya and her Texas sheet cake. This was her request for her cake, as this is the only cake that she will eat.