Alyssa's Princess Party

Today Maddie went to her friend Alyssa's 4th birthday party at Fairytale Ballet. The girls had so much fun dressing up, dancing, chasing bubbles, and eating cake.

Madeline was so proud of her tutu!

The girls did so good listening to the dance teacher.

And had so much fun dancing together.

Look at them busting out their best ballet moves!

Doing the ribbon dance.

Maddie in a mermaid costume dancing with her wand.

You can just see how much fun they were having...especially Maddie.

The little girls loved Alyssa's princess cake.

Happy birthday to you Alyssa!

Mmmmm, cake!

The birthday girl!

And of course they loved watching Alyssa open presents. It was hard to keep them from helping out! Happy 4th birthday Alyssa!!!

For the Love of Puppies!

One of Madeline's favorite things is puppies so we recently stopped by a puppy store during a recent trip....

Most of the puppies were two small breeds mixed together. They were all so cute. When we walked in all of the puppies perked up and looked at us with this "I'm cute, please take me home" look.

They all had their A-games on!

I mean how cute are these???

Madeline was in heaven!

They were all in short, open cages so we could easily pet them or pick them up.

It made me really want another puppy but ONE IS ENOUGH! We enjoyed our visit though.

Happy New Year 2012!

This New Year's Eve was the first one that Madeline got to celebrate. We went to a friend's house and enjoyed a small kid-friendly party. We had lots of good food and the kids got to have a toast at midnight with sparkling pear juice and peach pear Italian soda. We also had confetti poppers that we shot at midnight.

Madeline had a great time playing with the other kids and actually made it to midnight semi-gracefully. At about 11:50pm she broke down out of sheer exhaustion, cried, and threw a little fit. We held out for 10 minutes to ring in the new year then hit the road. I think she was asleep within 3.5 seconds of pulling out of the driveway to head home.

All in all we had a fun night and are so looking forward to what's ahead for us in 2012!

I wish you a healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year!

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!