My 3 year old was shy

But now that she's 4, she's ready for Broadway...



If clicking on the video above doesn't work, here's the link to youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68i7hhm57uU

Happy 1st Birthday, Brooke!

Dear Brooke,

Today you are 1 year old! I can't believe how fast this year flew by. You've been such a peaceful, happy baby. You rarely cry unless you needed something. You were my little breastfeeding champ! You just always go with the flow.

 

You simply adore your big sister and could just sit there and watch her. You giggle your unbelievably adorable giggle when she entertains you.

Even when the priest was baptizing you on the alter, you just looked up at him with your big eyes and smiled making him laugh. I can already see that you're going to have a great sense of humor one day.

 

It took you a little while to get used to eating solids, but then you loved everything that we'd feed you. And all your first foods were pureed with love by mama. Now that your eating big people food, you shovel it into your mouth as fast as you can. Especially if it's your favorite, strawberries (or ice cream).

 

We got more snow your first winter than we've had in many, many years, but that didn't stop you from enjoying it!

You have 4 teeth now! The first came in on February 19th and the other 3 all came within the following few weeks. Now your little smile is even more heart breaking! Your favorite game is rolling a ball back and forth, and now you're even starting to throw it (and you're getting daddy's hopes up for a future baseball player).

 

It took you a long time before you started sleeping through the night. We did a little cry-it-out which seemed to really work for you, but once you started doing well we had teething setbacks. Mommy has a tough time not running to you when you cry. I think we're finally on the right track and you're starting to sleep until (almost) 6am now!

Even though you're not walking yet, you have no problem getting around. You started crawling at 8 months old. Now you'll walk behind anything that you can push. You'll be walking on your own in no time, but please don't hurry! You love being a part of everything that is going on and don't want to be left out. And we love having you a part of our lives.

Happy Birthday, baby Brooke! I hope you enjoyed your first journey around the sun.

Happy 4th Birthday, Paige!

Dear Paige,

Today you turn 4 years old. You are so excited for your birthday. We’ve been crossing off the days on the princess calendar in your room every night before bed since the beginning of May.

You grew up so much this year and had so many big accomplishments. The first of which was about 2 months after you turned 3 years old when you were potty trained. We spent a weekend working on it and after that you had it mastered!

You seem to easily master just about everything you try. Just a few months after starting preschool this year, you learned how to read. Even your teachers were very proud of how quickly you’ve picked this up. You also learned how to write all your letters and your name.

You became a big sister this year too. It is so apparent how much you love your little sister. And she adores you just the same. I melt every time I see you give her a hug or a kiss, which is very often.

 You look forward to your gymnastics class every Thursday evening and are happy to show off your moves to anyone that asks. We look forward to introducing you to more activities and sports as you get older.

At school, your teachers tell us you’re pretty reserved. Although, you have come a long way since you started preschool. You have lots of friends and know the names of all the kids in your class. You keep pretty quiet at school, but when you come home you explode with song. It’s amazing to us how quickly you learn and memorize the songs from school.

There were so many good times this year, but this was probably also your most difficult year yet with the tantrums. As the year progressed, so did your vocabulary which has helped you a great deal in being able to voice your frustrations. Which in turn has helped us to help you work through them.When you're mad about something you'll often include the words "never ever" as in "I'll never ever be able to stop crying". What I love the most is your active imagination and how you absorb everything going on around you and then use your words to tell us what's on your mind. There isn't a day that goes by where you don't make us laugh.

We have loved watching you grow from a baby into our big girl. Happy Birthday, Princess!

Brooke

I love how well these pictures turned out. And I love that I was able to capture the progression of happy to not-so-happy as it happens within about 3 seconds.