Happy 4th Birthday Clementine

My Sweet Clementine,

Words cannot express how much you are loved.  Where do I start? This morning you came in to snuggle with me in my bed and you fell asleep with your hand stroking my face.  You told me how much you loved me and how beautiful I was.  That's just the kind of girl you are.  You are loving and lovable, gentle, kind, patient, and extremely thoughtful for a four year old.

Every day you and Bea play what you call "Sissies".  You consider yourselves to be sissies only when you are dressed totally alike and are agreeing on everything, which happens more often than not.  You don't mind being bossed around by Bea and you generally agree to everything she plans or says. You spend all your days playing with your sisters and sometimes I don't see you for hours on end.  You dress up in layers upon layers of dress up clothing and you ask me sometimes, "do I look fabulous?" Even though you like to play dress up, you're not super prissy and you would wear anything and don't mind getting dirty or messy.  You are my little helper and you do so much to help me on the farm. 

One thing about you is that you love Legos.  When presented with a choice between going to Disneyland or Legoland, you chose Legoland without hesitation. You will stay up very late creating elaborate Lego constructions and most of them are very long and delicate and when they break, you're not very happy about it.  You spend hours in Henry's room using his Legos even though he doesn't want you to touch his things, but you're always so considerate and thoughtful.  You would never ruin anything. 

Clementine's suprisingly symmetrical Lego creation

You talk to yourself and make up conversations between any two objects as long as one is smaller than the other.  The larger one is always the mommy and the small one is the baby.  You do this with ponies, food, sticks, rocks, bugs and wild animals.  On our hike the other day you picked up two box elder bugs and named them Rosie and Mosie.  As we hiked down the stream, I listened to you make up a conversation about the two bugs.  What a treat.  No matter what it is, you always call the smaller one "Sweetie".  I call you all my "Sweetie Pies" so I guess you are copying me.  It's so cute to see you learning to take care of little things through play.  You always tell me that you're a mommy and I don't negate it! You are such a wonderful mommy to everything on this earth.

You dance ballet and will be in your first performance soon...although you're not the most graceful dancer.  You have some very strange dance moves and are quite heavy on your feet, though I love every minute watching you dance because you love it so much.  Although you might not have natural talent, I'm eager to see what a lot of dedication and hard work will do.  I have a feeling you'll do very well as you and your sisters continue to do Ballet. 

You and your sisters usually play dress up every day and we frequently go places with you all in dress up costumes. You are actually the worst sleeper in the world and somehow get by on less than 8 hours of sleep a night.  It's not uncommon for you to be up until 11pm and when I come in to check on you when I go to bed, this is how I find you(see above).  This time when I walked in you said to me, "mommy, do I look fabulous?".  You are just so funny and lovable!  I hugged you and then tucked you in your little fabulous crazy outfit into bed. 

Fairy Dance Move

Strange Dance Move

 That said, you are extremely smart and can almost rival your sister, Bea, who is almost two years older than you.  Last year you went to the same preschool and by the end, you knew everything you needed to know to enter Kindergarten and you were just three years old.  You have even passed your sister up in our reading lessons!  You have even done more than 5 lessons a day without blinking. You have incredible concentration and have been known to color an entire coloring book in one sitting using just one color.  I love your art as well and I feel like I want to frame a lot of it.

You love hiking, camping and skiing.  You can do beautiful parallel turns and I dream of you becoming a world class skier someday, if you don't kill yourself.  You got a non-displaced spiral fracture, which was just barely a crack(and not broken according to Justin), but I know it was a break no matter what your dad says. You scooted on your bum for a week and limped for over a month.  You're so tough and didn't even get a cast!

Sticky hands from marshmallows.  You pretended to be a monster. 

Building "Cactus Castle" with Bea was a highlight of our last Moab camping trip

Your voice is so low that you sing in an adult register and your voice is a little scratchy.   I think you're on tune but I'm not quite sure.  I'm really hoping you'll have a Norah Jones-esque voice and that you'll be a really dynamic addition to our future family folk band.  You have been playing the violin/fiddle for about 5 months now and have enjoyed it, but the progress is painfully slow.  I hope to have one song for the band ready by the fall so we can play something with the Utah Old Tyme Fiddlers or something.  Your best song is "Shave and a haircut, two bits!" which has a grand total of 7 notes.  Twinkle twinkle doesn't sound bad either.

The present and future generations of BYU folk musicians.  My girls will be champion fiddlers! (just like the girls in the background).  They love playing

 You love to laugh and you have a low gutteral laugh that always makes everyone else laugh.  Your sisters are both very funny and they make you laugh all the time.  It's very easy to make you laugh, but it's almost impossible to get you to smile for a photo.  You always look the other way and have the fakest smile on the planet! Along with Bea and her bad teeth, and Vivi who won't sit still, I barely even have a photo of all of you looking at the camera!

Last of all, but most important, you really have a tender spot in your heart for your Savior, Jesus Christ.  You are quick to point out photos of him on our walls and you always tell your brother and sisters to stop fighting over things saying they're "mine" by yelling, "everything is Jesus' and he's just letting us borrow it!".  You love going to church and listening to the messages of the gospel.  As I mentioned earlier, you are very thoughtful and wise. Sometimes you astound me at the depth of understanding and comprehension you have of situations and ideas.  You are a peacemaker and you love all your siblings.  You notice every tiny flower and you always compliment everyone and think the world is just beautiful everywhere you look.  Your sweetness and goodness runs deep in your soul and I know you are a precious spirit of our Father in Heaven.  I wish I could keep you at this age forever.  It's such a wonderful time of life.  You are so loved by all.

Love,
Mommy