5 Months

My mom had the best idea when Madeline was born to take a monthly picture with a stuffed animal so that we could look back and see how much she grew and changed each month. We did this with Madeline, but like so many things I start, I never really followed through very well. This is my eternal problem. I'm not short of great ideas, or good intentions, and I think I'm really great at beginings. I'm just not always the best at follow through. Looking back at Madeline pictures it looks like I lost interest / got busy and forgot at about month 9. I am going to really try to not do the same to Owen. It has been 5 months, and I have been very dilligent with the monthly pictures. Hopefully I can keep it up.

Fashion Show

Fashion Show, Fashion Show, Fashion Show at lunch!

That is from one of my all-time favorite Office episodes and I find myself singing that all the time. Now Madeline knows it.

For her birthday last week Andy and I gave her 2 gifts, kind of a his and her gift, but they were both from both of us. We gave her a set of golf clubs, I'll address that on another day, but no we are not crazy parents who are going to push her into jr golf at age 4. We also gave her a shopping spree. This is not nearly as tween-ey annoying as it sounds. Madeline has outgrown a lot of her summer dresses. She usually gets a lot of clothes for her birthday, so I intenionally held off on buying her anything this year. But she had a fun birthday year and got lots of great non-clothes gifts. Usually I got clothes shopping without her. It's easier, and then I can pick out the clothes I like for her, and she doesn't wind up with a wardrobe of exclusively Dora and Barbie. So for her birthday, we went shopping online together. I gave her the choice of shopping online the day after her birthday or waiting until the weekend and going together. She chose online because she loves getting mail. Last week the clothes arrived, and Madeline did a great job of picking out new clothes. She wanted to try them all on, and insisted I take pictures of each outfit. She danced and pranced in each outfit. I didn't know a 4 year old could be so excited about clothes.

Owen does not need the excuse of new clothes to wear 5 outfits per day. He is quite the little drooler and manages to get everything soaking wet. This weekend I gave in and let him wear just a diaper for several hours.

Happy Birthday Cupcake

Madeline's 4th birthday was last week and she totally rocked it. She had about 5 parties, and I made more cupcakes in one week than I did all of 2009. I taught myself a little about cake decorating, and was really glad I made a practice cake in April. Her birthday cake was about 500 times prettier than my first attempt. Madeline really wanted her party this year at an inflatable place, and it was perfect. She had lots of friends from school and life excited to celebrate with her. One of my friends has a daughter that is abut 2 1/2 years old. Madeline's big sister instincts kicked in to gear and held Isabella's hand taking her to all of the different inflatables. She really adored having all of the attention. It was a really fun weekend, and a great early mother's day treat for me.


For her actual birthday, she had a little celebration at school. For birthdays at her school, we had to make a poster with pictures of her previous birthdays. They talk about different milestones met at each age, I'm guessing to really understand what getting older is about. The birthday child also gets to hold a globe and walk around a candle as everyone sings a song, "The Earth Goes Round the Sun". So bonus, she learns a little science. Andy went to her school for that. he said she smiled the whole time, so happy to have 40 little eyes fixed on her. For her birthday dinner, we told her we would go anywhere she wanted or I would make anything she wanted. I will admit that I worked very hard to sway her, and we did not go to McDonalds. We went to Hasta La Pasta and she got to wear her Fancy Nancy shoes and got a birthday cake at the restaurant. She had a really great birthday, and is already planning for next year!



My 4 year old!