What To Get the Little Girl Who Has Everything...

...handed down to her through two older sisters, that is. And sometimes even those things have come by way of older cousins or friends. You name it, and it probably came through the blessed hand-me-down chain: dresses, blouses, toys, books, chores, curricula.

But not her 5th birthday celebration. This one was tailored just for her--the smart little girl who people might not suspect because of the way she mumbles through her overbite.

She's the little girl who, at 2, pretended to be mute for an entire year of Bible Study Fellowship, and made her teacher cry on the last day when she decided to join in for the hymn singing. It was quite literally the first time her teachers had ever heard her voice.

She's the one who doesn't need anyone to play with but her favorite friend, Dumpling. And she's the one whose little heart broke into a million pieces in the spring when she caught Dumpling running and playing with another little girl--not her--before ballet class. It's not that it hadn't happened before, but it just hadn't mattered before. She quit ballet that day. She double quit. And then I sopped up a puddle of Cuddlebug the best I could.

She isn't one for crowds. Or noise. For her third birthday, we braved a Saturday afternoon at Peter Piper Pizza. Doesn't she look so happy?

I stressed over how to mark this day for her.

She wouldn't have been impressed by the rented jumpy-castle we got for Fifi on her 5th birthday. Cuddlebug and Dumpling have one all to themselves often enough when I take them to the gym nursery.

She doesn't have the dozens of friends that Dumpling did to fill her birthday table and set the backyard to buzzing over an egg hunt. Cuddlebug has no interest or natural talent in "working the room" like her very social older sister. And she won't need it; the Lord has an equally-important, but very different plan for her life.

But what she does love is driving. Remember this short clip from Disneyland?

And who she does love, are the wonderful folks at our new church who have been the Lord's instrument in fulfilling His promise in Mark 10 that we who have "left" family to follow Christ will find family returned to us 100 fold!

So Cuddlebug's birthday looked a bit different than the usual fare. A fajita dinner for 11--only 3 of them were in single digits (and two of those were mine), friends interested in celebrating the day with us, a birthday tiara, a scepter, a tea set, some spectauflashy pencils and...a new car.