Lucy is 4! FOUR!

Our sweet little baby Lucygirl has turned four...how did that happen?!

I took a picture of her before bed on Tuesday...her last night as a 3-year-old...and as soon as she woke up on Wednesday, she was itching to be measured to see how tall she is - you know, now that she's four!

We had a fun day filled with birthday adventures but on Thursday, she went to see Dr. Voet for her check-up.  She was having a good old time and was very sweet and chatty with the doctor.  Dr. Voet asked several questions, including "Do you notice any delays or problems with her speech?" so I mentioned that she has trouble with her "ck" and "g" sounds (the "ck" becomes a "t" and the "g" becomes a "d" - as in I lite chotolate tate betause it's dood).  She suggested we contact a speech therapist to have her evaluated to see if speech therapy is necessary.  She can make these sounds if she concentrates so it may just be a matter of us working with her a little bit.



All smiles until the nurse mentioned the shots...

 Four year stats:
Weight - 38.80 pounds / 77%
Height - 40.50 inches / 68 %

She got pretty panicky and started to cry when the nurse mentioned the shots, and she cried through all three (!!) of them but the tears were pretty short-lived.

But back to the actual birthday!
She woke up and got measured and then we headed downstairs, where she saw her birthday banner hanging:

 

This is her favorite pose lately


We ate some breakfast then decorated her birthday cake which we'd baked the night before:

But then it was time to get dressed and head to our first adventure spot - Recreations Outlet.  Lucy got to run and play and jump and swing and slide...and she was loving life!

After a couple of hours of playing, my birthday girl was pretty hungry to we left to meet Daddy at Skyline (though it turns out my birthday girl was also pretty sleepy because she fell fast asleep on the way and stayed that way for 15 minutes in the Skyline parking lot...I finally had to wake her up to go in to eat).

Since Daddy had a track meet that night, we let Lucy open a birthday gift at lunch - she got some Frozen glow stars to hang on her ceiling and an Elsa "birthday girl" shirt to wear to her party.

After lunch, Daddy had to go back to work but us girls went to the Dollar Tree to pick up some snacks to take to the movies with us...we went to see Cinderella! 
(For the record, I didn't love the movie...I didn't hate it or anything but I don't plan to buy it or ever watch it again...Lucy seemed to like it okay, though it didn't hold her attention nearly as well as Frozen did (this is only her second movie on the big screen) and she was out of her seat lots walking around our row...luckily the theater was almost empty, only a few other viewers and none in our row). 

After the show, she played a couple of arcade games and we got our pics taken in the photo booth!

Last Wednesday was a beautiful day and after the movie, we realized we had some time to spare before we had to fetch Max so we went to a couple of parks to play!

That night, Lucy had dance class (and she was excited to bring a little birthday treat to all of her fellow dancers) and after, Max and I sang "Happy Birthday" to her and gave her a couple more gifts...

And this gift - a purple phone - was waiting on our porch when she got home -
a little birthday surprise from "Grandma and Grandpa with the dogs"





Max got her a small mermaid Barbie doll...
and she LOVED it!



"Tie shoes" from Mom and Dad

She also got an Easy Bake oven!

 She had a great birthday and she felt very special which is just what we wanted for our amazing girl.  She may be frustrating at times but she has enriched our lives in the most beautiful way these past four years and we love her, we love her, we love her!!!


Soon it was party day and I must say, I may have been just as excited as Lucy (or maybe more so)!
Dave and I made a bunch of paper snowflakes to hang as decorations in keeping with the Frozen theme and we were feeling pretty proud of ourselves when we hung them up the night before:

Lucy had picked out a cake on Pinterest and asked GranJan to make it for her...she brought the picture to life and our little birthday girl was very pleased!

Lucy invited her very best friend from school, Ava, so we were all so happy she and her mom could make it to the party.

The party was a huge success...we had Rocket the bounce house on loan from Auntie to make all of the crazy kids happy, there was a pinata, and there were tons of wonderful gifts showered on our girl by our generous family! 

After she opened her gifts, I asked her to show me what she thought about all of them:

VERY happy and excited...and grateful!


One last surprise - a new bike from Mom and Dad!  She's already so good at riding it!



Happy birthday, baby!



Max - 10 months old

Baby guy is now 10 months old and weighs 22 pounds, 10.5 ounces.  I tried to measure his height but he wasn't in the mood - he kept buckling at the knee when I tried to stand him up against the wall...

Each month, it gets more and more difficult to get a photo of this little (big) guy...

He's either crawling away, diving out of the chair or trying to steal the camera...I did my best but this kid's a fool!

A little look back through the months:

He's such a big boy now that he feeds himself and sits in the cart at Kroger...and he feels really cool when doing both!

Some foods he's tried include:

Blueberries, raspberries, bananas, peanut butter crackers, scrambled eggs, cheese, turkey, peas, green beans, sausage, and pancakes.  He's become interested in spoon feeding himself, too, though Dad isn't brave enough to allow that!  Mom hands the spoon over from time to time and he's got pretty good aim!

One of his favorite things to do is to get into Lucy's things!  She's still a good sport about it most of the time but he often seems a little mischievous about it - like he knows he's not supposed to be grabbing for her Barbie horse and does it anyway...

He loves playing ball and is good at it!  He can focus and toss the ball back to whoever rolls it to him or asks him to throw it to them...he Lucy can sit for long stretches, playing ball together...such cuteness!

He had some fun adventures lately...KidZoo where Lucy showed him the ropes on the trampoline and the zoo with a bunch of friends!

 

First carousel ride!



Max visited my work and buddied up to my boss!

This guy is an expert crawler!  He gets around so well...and so FAST!  Lucy never really crawled - she preferred cruising around with us holding her hands.  This guy isn't as interested in walking; he's learned how to get where he wants to be (and usually, where he shouldn't be!) super fast.  He does pull himself up onto anything, though.

He also loves music and loves to dance.  He kind of bounces around whenever he hears music and his favorite song seems to be The Itsy Bitsy Spider!

Such a cutie, such a sweetie!