Bringer of Joy--Tatum Leigh

5 years ago today (Dec. 18th) Toby & I were blessed with the most precious, beautiful baby girl in the world, at least we think so. Tatum Leigh Anderson was born at 6:30 in the evening, all 6 pounds 6 ounces of her. She immediately stole our hearts & has held them captive ever since. What a wonderful Christmas gift, & one that keeps on giving! I thank God everyday that I have her & that I was fortunate to be the mommy picked for her. Tatum's smile & giggle are contagious & the animated way she talks is just too cute. I can't imagine my life without her.

Thank you God for the precious gift you gave us in this sweet little girl, Tatum Leigh!

Tatum's birthday cake (made by me so don't laugh).

Theme: The Princess & the Frog

On Tatum's actual birthday she had a fun filled day. It began with school. They had a pajama party for their last day before Christmas break with a Polar Express theme. Here she is with her engineer hat.

Next was the Christmas party. Toby, Cross, & I got to go to the party. Here she is with Daddy in his Santa hat/mask & enjoying her chocolate Rudolph.

Cross had fun at the party as well. This is the advantage of having an older sibling in school, you get to take part in the parties.

Tatum got to wear a birthday crown & a big birthday sticker. The class sang Happy Birthday "Cha cha cha" style to her.

This was the best pic I could get of her class. What a bunch of cuties!

Tatum loves Mrs. Westfahl & I think Mrs. Westfahl loves her. We are wishing Mrs. Westfahl could go to Kindergarten with us.

Tatum wanted me to wear pajamas to the party, too. So, being the party momma I am, I broke out the extra large Christmas p.j.s (again, don't laugh).

Always will be a daddy's girl, which is how it should be!

The next event of our day was lunch at Chic-fil-a, her choice of course. She can usually put away some nuggets, today however she was full of bagel bites from her school party. She & Cross played for a while & then it was on to our next stop...

The Melting Pot for dessert. Again, her choice & definitely not a bad one. Smores chocolate with crumbled Oreos, melted goodness, with a plate of various dippers--strawberries, bananas, brownies, pound cake, cheesecake, etc. Can you say YUMMY?! The Melting Pot is always so good to have a card for the occasion. Notice what Tatum's says. We just went along with it.

'Licious as Cross would say. Notice that he held on to his fondue "sword".

After eating all day, we needed to burn some calories, or at least I did, so we went to the outdoor ice rink downtown. This was Tatum's first time & she did pretty good. I love to ice skate, well with my own skates. This was fun because I was with her, but man I was tired. When I skated with a partner, we were usually closer in height, so it was a little easier on the back.

Here she is peeking over the rail. Everyone thought she was adorable. Yes, it was warm enough for her to be out there without a jacket.

She kept asking to go out to the middle, she's getting braver about doing things or she might have just been smart enough to realize that all those other kids weren't out there.

Later, we snuck the skates on Cross. Those pictures will be on another entry. Tatum had a great day & we had a great day with her celebrating our precious bringer of joy's special day. I must sign off now to continue the festivities... her favorite, a sleepover.