golden four

Our lovely Abbie turned four on the fourth of this month and we had a wonderful few days of celebrating.  On her actual birthday, we started the day by opening presents.  Then, she had a "daddy date" with Matt for lunch.  After Miriam was done with school, we went down to the children's museum for some play time.  We finished off the night with dinner at Abbie's choice of restaurant...a pizza place...followed by cake and ice cream at home.  Then, the following weekend, we invited family over to celebrate again.  She had a great birthday and loves being four!

Two!

Somehow, two years have quickly passed by since our darling Ella joined our family.  I can't remember life without her...what joy this little one has added to our family.  We enjoyed celebrating her birthday with just us on her actual birthday and then with extended family the following weekend.  We also had her two-year-old well check which confirmed her suspected better than average height (90th percentile).  Her favorite parts of her birthday were blowing out candles, eating cake and singing happy birthday (and continuing almost every day since).  It was a great few days of celebrating our "baby"!  

a new year

The unofficial end of summer has come and gone and we sent Miriam back to school last week.  She had mixed emotions about being back at school, but was overall pretty excited.  She has a great teacher and we are looking forward to seeing how she will grow in 1st grade!

six {!}

I'm not sure how it happened, but six years somehow have passed by since our beautiful Miriam entered the world and joined our family.  What a blessing she is to all of us!  We are so proud of her.  Today (and this weekend!) are full of celebrations for our Miriam Jean.

18 month stats

Miss Ella turned 18 months last Sunday and went in for her 18-month check-up this week.  She was healthy and growing just as she should be!  Here are her stats: length is 32.5" (75th percentile) and weight is 26 pounds (80th percentile).  The doc said she's a big girl!  But the biggest news of all is that she is cutting her FIRST teeth--finally!  And of course, since she's been doing things her own way since the beginning, it's not the bottom teeth, but the top!  

our latest accomplishments.

...and by "our", I mean the children.

Miriam:
Reading. I love this so much. I feel like she's had the fundamentals for reading for awhile--even before Kindergarten--but her confidence has really helped her get that extra push to actually read on her own. She still struggles with confidence a bit...sometimes I give her a book we own and I know she can read it but she thinks she can't and then won't try. But any of the books she brings home from school that her teacher says she can read, she will. It's been really fun (especially as a former elementary teacher) to watch her learn this. One of my favorite milestones so far!

Abbie:
Puzzles, potty training and painting. That pretty much sums it all up! Abbie is wanting to everything like her big sister, so she is learning much along the way. She always surprises me with how well she can do puzzles, and she loves to do them, too. Potty training...well, that has been in the works for awhile now, but she does almost everything on her own. That helps me a lot, too! And painting...she asks me to do this all the time. So we do it as often as we can!

Ella:
Walking and talking. This little girl has taken her sweet time with walking. She is a master scooter (I will post a video sometime soon of that), so I feel like the normal transition from crawling to walking isn't quite there for her. She definitively could be fully walking if she wanted to, but she often just plops down and scoots along. But everywhere I take her, people repeatedly comment on how they just love watching her scoot! I just want her up and walking so I can take her outside. Scooting on the muddy grass will not do wonders for my massive laundry load! And talking...I think "bye" was her official first word. She is so used to saying it each morning to Matt and Miriam when they leave for the day. It comes out as, "daaa!" and she always waves, too. She's working on "hi" and pretty much signs her other "words."

It's so fun watching them all grow up in their own stages!

growing up

I have commented to a few people lately that although my days and weeks sometimes seem long, the months and years always fly by. I'm not sure exactly how that works, but it often feels that way. Sometimes I find myself just wishing for time to go by so that we can hurry out of these intense and often challenging days of parenting. But then I look at these pictures and wonder...where did that time go? I need to constantly remind myself to live in these moments, no matter how hard they are.

"but I still feel like I'm 3!"

I still can't believe it, but Monday was Miriam's 4th birthday.  When she woke up, I asked her what day it was...and she shouted, "my birthday!  But I still feel like I'm 3!"

Since we're going to celebrate with friends in a week, we decided to do a few things as a family per Miriam's request.  We went to a local park/zoo and looked at the animals and played on the park for awhile.  

Matt also had the great idea of surprising Miriam with a "slug bug" to ride around in on her birthday.  He called a family from church and they graciously let us borrow their Beetle convertible for the afternoon!  She has been pointing out Beetles and PT Cruisers for the past few months every time she sees them, so we knew she would be thrilled.  However, she was still a little unsure about the convertible part...it was "too windy."

We opened up a few presents at home...this one was her favorite.  

After going out for dinner at one of her favorite restaurants, we stopped for a dilly bar at Dairy Queen.  She got a ride on the horse while we waited for our ice cream.

We had a fabulous day celebrating our little girl's 4th birthday.  She's growing up so fast!

it's fun being one

today we celebrate

your joy

your love

your smile

your birth

YOU

Happy 1st Birthday, dearest Abbie!