Kaitlyn 18 months

I haven't done an update in a while on KK. She is now 18 months (actually, because I'm so behind she's 21 months...). She had a great developmental check-up and is doing amazing! Her vocabulary is between 60-80 words and it seems as if she is learning new words everyday. Just this week she started saying "pack pack" for backpack, sorry (she hit her sister and when I told her to say "sorry", she did), socks, and Coke (the soda!). She weighed in at exactly 20 pounds, but seems so much bigger, and her height and head circumference were average. She is sleeping wonderfully and goes to bed at 7:45 and wakes up a little past 7. One major thing is she is climbing out of her crib! We lowered it the lowest possible setting and so far she hasn't crawled out yet, phew! We are so not ready to transition her to a big girl bed. She loves baths and one time she crawled in the tub while it was filling with her clothes on. She copies everything Mady does, and loves her baby dolls. She is such a good mommy! She continues to cry/whine constantly with Jacob if he is around and does not pick her up. This has turned into a nightmare that we are currently dealing with. She is also still on Pulmicort and Xopenex and we feel that this is going to be a long road for her. She got really sick over break during the cold/flu season, so hopefully now that the weather is warming up we won't have anymore episodes for a while! She is just so loveable and cute and I can't stand it when she wears her pigtails. Having two girls has been the greatest blessing of all and we are loving every minute of it (except the whole crying/whining thing over Jacob, but that's all...)!

Mady turns 4

My big girl has turned four and started the week off with a bang! She had four cakes in all, and some very special birthday parties to help celebrate! We started celebrating the Sunday before at Grandma and Pop Pop's house. Grandma cooked Mady's favorite food of the moment, chicken and dumplings, and had a special princess castle cake (#1) featuring all of the Disney princesses.

The next party was on her actual birthday at Mimi's house. Here she celebrated with all of her friends at daycare. Mimi made her a special Disney princess cake (#2) and got lots of presents from her friends at daycare.

That night we celebrated by going to dinner with Gma at Steak-n-Shake. This is a tradition that we do. We always go to dinner here and then have cake at our house. This time Gma brought over a frog cake (#3) and we celebrated again! Today we also bought Mady her birthday presents which were tying shoes. She's been dying for them and has been saying all year, "when I turn four I get tying shoes". So, she ended up with cute pink Converse and Nike's.

The last party was the big celebration on Saturday with all of her friends. Mady wanted a cooking party so that's exactly what we had. The kids made pasta necklaces, pizzas, trail mix, decorated tiara cookies, made licorice and cereal bracelets, and wore chef hats and aprons.

In their goodie bags I used Publix green recyclable bags to store their cookie and trail mix, and then each child got a personalized apron with their name on it. I had pink aprons with lime green embroidery for the girls, and royal blue aprons with white embroidery for the boys. They turned out super cute!

Then it was time for cake! This year Mady had a tiara-shaped, cupcake pull-apart cake (#4). Of course, it featured her favorite three princesses: Belle, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty. The kids loved the cupcakes and it was so much easier than dealing with cutting a cake.

I think Mady loved her party(ies) and she received some very nice presents. She got a new vanity from Grandma and Pop Pop for her room and Gma took the whole family to see La Nouba over the weekend. Mady loved everything and can't wait to turn 5!