Southernbelle Mommy: Happy 4th Birthday, Ellie Hollyn Shanks!

Our sweet Ellie turned 4 on June 24! She is a joy to have in our family, and we are blessed that God has allowed us to be her parents!

Ellie's favorites include Hello Kitty, Minnie Mouse, ballet, dress up, princesses, pink, painting fingernails, 'macacheese,' milk, 'Pop Turts,' breakfast bars, cookies, etc. There are many more, but those are some of them. She is quite partial to men. This could mean trouble later in life. She loves Mr. Kevin, Mr. David, Mr. Hickey, and her Uncle Josh (she pretends she doesn't want him to tickle her, but she loves it!), and of course her Daddy! She is very excited to be in "the 4's class" next year at her preschool. She gets excited when she realizes it's time for Bible Class. She is good at working on memorizing Bible verses. She told me, with concern, this year that one of her friends at school had told her that God wasn't the most important. This upset her because we tell her that God IS the most important. I think they discussed it :) and I was proud of Ellie for realizing that her friend was wrong! Some of her best friends are Jack, Lyla, Quinlan, Evia, & Coco. She adores her biggest sister and enjoys playing with (& sometimes arguing with) her big sister. ;) She is a little diva for sure....we're hoping to keep her sweet & girly while also helping her realize it's not really ALL about her! She is pure sweetness...with a lot of spunk & attitude, and WE LOVE HER!

We celebrated her birthday with Gramps & Gramme, who were in town, the day before her birthday. She had requested a Minnie Mouse cake, so that's what she got! That and 'macacheese!' Interestingly, she much prefers the 'boxed kind' much better than my yummy homemade!

Katie was very proud that she made up a song to play for Ellie. She took it very seriously.

The cake.....I must admit, we picked it up at the last minute and stuck a picture of Minnie on top of it (what can I say....she's the 3rd child!) but Ellie found it to be YUMMY.