Guess Who's FOUR?????

Yep, I can't believe it but my little baby is now 4 years old!!!

We celebrated at Grandma's house since we spent the night on Christmas night and Maddie's birthday was December 26th.

Maddie's favorite part of birthdays is singing the Happy Birthday song and blowing out candles. I think she likes this more than the presents!

And eating cake...

...she looks pretty happy to me!

We surprised her with pink balloons all over the living room when she woke up on her birthday morning.

And we opened a couple presents.

A Melissa & Doug wooden birthday cake playset.

Ohhh, what is it???

A play ice cream set too! Great addition to her play kitchen.

And an activity book with lots of stickers.

For lunch we went into town for Madeline's choice: Pizza!

Christmas 2011

This year for Christmas we celebrated with Daddy's side of the family on Christmas eve and Mommy's side of the family on Christmas day after opening our presents from Santa on Christmas morning.

Madeline opening some of her Santa presents.

Madeline's "big" present from us was a full-sized doll house that can accomodate up to a 12 inch sized doll (Barbie). She loves it and puts her puppies in it as well.

Puppy dining on some birthday cake!

The scooter that we had to get because this is pretty much all she asked Santa for.

Madeline with cousin Ava on Christmas eve with their dollies. I think Ava was actually holding Madeline's doll. Then both got the two little dolls from their Grandma.

This pic was from the weekend before Christmas the night of Madeline's Christmas program for Parent's Day Out.

Me and my girl. Like the ugly Christmas sweater??? Priceless!

Madeline's cousins Abram and Ava came to watch too.

They even had cookies and punch afterwards.

Ava is looking so grown up. I can't believe she will be 5 years old in February! Time sure flies!

Iowa Visit and Christmas Fun!

We took a quick trip up to Iowa this past month...here are just a few random pics...

Maddie loved the Ronald McDonald statue at McDonalds in Marion.

Grandpa & Grandma with Maddie by Aunt Roxie's Christmas tree.

And me with my girl.

A lunch date at Culvers with our family - a couple of aunts and some cousins.

Fast forward a couple weeks to a special date we had with our friends Amy and Alyssa. We took our girls to their first Nutcracker Suite with the Kansas City Ballet at the new Kauffman Center downtown. The building was amazing and so was the show. Too bad it was right at Maddie's naptime so she slept through the first half of the show. The little girls looked so cute in their fancy dresses.

Then this past Friday Madeline and I went to see the Holiday Express Train again at the Union Station downtown Kansas City. It was our third year going and we love seeing it! Afterwards we went over to Crown Center for a little shopping and lunch at the Crayola Cafe with some friends from Madeline's playgroup.

Some of the decorations on the train.

My cute smiley little girl with the train.

At Crown Center Madeline spotted some cute holiday balloons at the toy store.

Then we checked out a really cool ginger bread village display complete with moving trains!