Camille’s classroom has a tradition of celebrating each child’s birthday with the “Birthday Circle.” The birthday child builds a sun out of 12 wooden slats surrounding a candle, with each ray representing a month of the year. The child walks around the sun once for each year of her life while her parents share memories and photos from each year.

Because Camille’s birthday happens during summer break, she was invited to have her birthday circle today.

On the one hand, it’s great to have all her monthly letters as a resource, helping us dig up some fun memories from each year of her life. On the other hand – have you seen how many letters there are? And how long some of them are? I don’t even want to tell you how much time I spent last night going over the letters, looking for tidbits to mention and favorite photographs. It was a fun task though, and brought back many good memories. 

I thought it might also be fun to share them here – a sort of retrospective of her seven years. What great years they have been. 

Camille Grace Heidel was born on July 19, 2006. This summer she will be seven years old.

In the first year of Camille’s life, she saw the Atlantic Ocean for the first time on Tybee Island, and then took her first airplane ride to Oregon where she saw the Pacific Ocean. She loved to eat cheese grits, had her first taste of ice cream, and her first word was “bird.”

In the second year of Camille’s life, she loved coloring , listening to music and looking at books. We would often put her in her crib along with piles and piles of books, and she would sit and look at each one. She called her elbow her Elmo and called herself Mille. Her favorite place to visit was Oatland Island to see all the animals.

In the third year of Camille’s life, she got her first comic book, began helping to cook in the kitchen, and got to play in the snow at her grandparent’s house in Tennessee. She did not like to put her head underwater in the pool. She had her first pony ride, and wanted to wear princess crowns everywhere she went.

In the fourth year of Camille’s life, she said she wanted to grow up to be a famous ballerina or a cowgirl. She began taking dance classes, got her first haircut and went camping in the north Georgia mountains. She broke her collar bone on a trip to Florida. She traveled to Chicago and visited the Field Museum, where she saw the dinosaur skeleton of the T-Rex Sue, still one of her favorite dinosaurs.

In the fifth year of Camille’s life, she traded dance classes for gymnastics. She loved playing with superheroes. She had her picture in the newspaper holding a snake. She went to Disney World and met Rapunzel. Pink and purple were her favorite colors. She did not like French fries, but loved jelly beans.

In the sixth year of Camille’s life, she got her first pet, a guinea pig named Piglet, and ran in her first race. She started kindergarten in Ms. Jen’s class at Ellis. She liked collecting arrowheads, went to her first UGA football game, and dressed up like a cat for Halloween. She went ice skating and we had a snowball fight.

In the seventh year of Camille’s life, her favorite restaurant was the Crab Shack, and she jumped off the diving board for the first time. She began taking horseback riding lessons. She took a train to Washington, DC and toured the White House. She loved playing Star Wars. She rode a camel and went sledding, and this summer will go to Costa Rica right before turning seven years old.