On the 24th, I put my two-year-old Fiona to bed for the very last time.

Here she is at two:

And here she is at three:

I’m sure you can see the difference, which was apparently enormous, based on the way she floated through the day, standing a bit taller and playing with a bit more big-girl-ness. Even if you can’t quite see it, trust me, it was there. She felt it. (Aren’t birthdays just magical when you’re two-going-on-three?)

Or maybe it’s just the two and three part that is magical, because I truly love this age. Two years of watching a babbling, tripping, giggling, drooling baby mature into a full personality — a little person who is thinking, wondering, expressing, laughing, loving. I’m just in awe every time.

And totally in love.

We had bananas and graham cracker “cereal” for breakfast: her favorites.

She got to hold a new baby, another favorite. (Wow. Is he cute or what?)

I put pink flowers on her table. Pink is really the only color worth speaking of, you know.

And plenty of pink wrapping paper collecting on her gift table.

I wish I could have captured her face at a hundred different points of the day. When she watched the frosting for her cake slowly turn to pink in the mixer — glee! When her siblings showed her the presents Mama had set out — ecstasy! When Margaret and Aunt Beans and Vivian came — giggles and clapping! When Papa and Nana arrived just for her birthday — hands to her heart, face bursting with thankfulness.

She was the princess for the day, and we all happily enjoyed her radiance.

And as she laid in bed, very late for even a three year old, holding her brand new doll with the same wonder with which I remember doting over my most precious dolls, she said, “I just love her so much. Thank you, Mama.”

You can’t write a script better than that.

“Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift?
the fruit of the womb his generous legacy?