Celebrating Maelee!

Maelee's birthday festivities stretched almost two full weeks this year, between her actual birthday, her birthday party, and a final celebration with Nana & Pop-Pop last weekend.  And she ended up with enough gifts to show for it!  She certainly can not complain...

April 22nd began with the styracosaurus gift that she picked out the day before (from a store filled with many different options!) and she was equally excited to open the stuffed My Little Pony from Lilee right after.  Our little lady has quite the diverse taste!  Other favorites were a blue dino bag, another My Little Pony figure, 4 dollars (that went to a blue chick stuffed animal on a post-Easter sale!), and some very cute clothes, including the best t-shirt we've ever seen: pink with a firece T-rex being ridden by a little girl holding a wand! Given her "royal" birthday party, the shirt was a perfect representation of our Maelee's favorite things at age four. :)

The Birthday!

 

We topped off the day with Maelee's choice of chocolate chip pancakes at Big Daddy's followed by an ice cream sundae with singing waiters.

It was a fun day!

And the fun continued the following Sunday afternoon at the birthday party!!!  A couple months back, Maelee settled on a "Cinderella" themed party, after cycling through Strawberry Shortcake, "colors," Spiderman, and My Little Pony options.  To keep it more on the royal side, Steve and I jointly put together (or maybe attempted is a better word!) a carriage cake, and got a great deal on darling paper decor through a promo offer.  The main star of the party however (aside from the birthday girl, of course), was to be a surprise visit from Cinderella herself!!!  Boy, were we all surprised at the Cinderella we got!  Not only was she 45 minutes late due to the company's error, but let's just say, she wasn't quite what we were expecting... 

I think my mouth dropped open even more than Maelee's did.  But for different reasons.  Sigh.  We were hoping for quite a huge "You're going to Disney!" level excitement when she saw her, but Maelee's expression can be described more like, "huh?" when she arrived.  Steve and I had to just take a deep breath and excitedly exclaim, "Look, Maelee, it's Cinderella!!!" over and over and God bless her, Maelee got into it and ended up enjoying this Cinderella- despite some confusion afterward!  The performer did pay a lot of attention to the kiddos (even if she hardly cracked a smile the whole time and that dang brown wool coat only came off for about one minute for a photo with the kids- at another mom's suggestion!) and it made for a funny story in the end, at least!

 

 

 

With "Cinderella!" 

What, you don't see it??? :)

 

More joy later that evening tearing into more presents!  This little girl has more goodies than she knows what to do with...

Our little royal darlings :)

And finally, my folks made the trip up last weekend for one last hurrah in the city before our move and to celebrate their big little four year old granddaughter.  It was a quick visit, but very full, and we loved every minute.  Maelee especially loved the b-day cake/gifts part of the trip... :)

"Princess" Strawberry Shortcake w/ Ariel hair :)

Her own little hide-away

And a super special gift of the Shel Silverstein's book of silly poems which was originally a gift for Uncle Dan when he was a young boy.  She loves them!

And of course, more cake!!!

We enjoyed stretching out the celebration of our little lady and are looking forward to what this next year will bring.  So many changes ahead!  Despite being quite a handful (to put it mildly!), with a will that rivals her mommy's and daddy's (where could she get it from???), she is filled with a joy that brings us so much joy.  When not being our strong-willed handful, she prances around cheerfully smiling, singing, dancing, and pretending.  And we absolutely adore that enthusiastic spirit of hers.  She is one unique, special little girl, and we are so thankful for her!!!

Birthday slideshow:

April's Activities

April had a few spring-like days, at least!  It was a full month and went by fast.  

The first weekend, while Steve was out of town, the girls and I joined good friend, Desiree, and her boys for fun in Central Park and a sweet treat at NYC's first "cupcake atm."

with Han Christian Andersen :)

Getting a little too close to the water!

The next Saturday saw three birthday parties in a row!!!  Maelee was one lucky lady...

 

No cake pic for this one, but sweet Lilee chilling in the playground :)

 

Pretty in purple on Palm Sunday

More sweet sister love!

Apple of daddy's (and mommy's!) eye

   Having a blast at a "dinosaur playground" on the west side

We enjoyed more of Central Park, further north this time, on the third Saturday of the month, admiring the beautiful flowers and climbing the rocks...

 

Our little Lilee has had so many changes this month!  So many excited, sweet smiles with adorable chatter and her first giggles at the beginning of the month while watching her big sis acting silly- priceless!  She's also starting to grab things and has much more control of her hands.  And the chewing and drool!  We are wondering if the beginnings of teething are here...

.

 

More April pics:

Of course one of the biggest activities of the month, aside from Easter, was Maelee's 4th birthday!!! What a year it's been with her... :) An "all about Maelee" post should follow soon. But for now, welcome May!

Celebrating Easter

He is Risen!

We had a fun couple of weeks leading up to Easter, enjoying typical traditions like egg decorating and egg hunts, while also celebrating the sacred meaning behind this super important holiday and what it means for us. It was so special this year to explain to Maelee how even the commercial Easter standards like eggs and bunnies can be examples that point us to Christ- bunnies are gentle, have big ears for listening, are white as snow, etc, etc... Like egg hunts, if you search for Jesus, He is always there, etc, etc... And to see her truly begin to grasp the meaning of the Cross has been great to witness.  

We love hearing her explain the meaning of Good Friday and Easter Sunday and even her little mealtime prayers have gotten more and more personal and relevant- especially when she prays daddy will have a safe trip to NJ and Lilee will sleep well!  Oh, how we pray we will see evidence of these little truths taking root in her heart!  She is still sooo possessive of her things, and her friend's things most the time, and can have a just-plain-mean streak that frustrates us to no end, but her joyful spirit and incredibly sweet and loving attitude toward her sister (and us and certain friends, at times!) does give us hope! :)  Another precious video of how she feels about her baby sister is below.  And here are some of our favorite shots from the last couple weeks...

 

Singing in front of the church on Palm Sunday!

She couldn't quite get to the mic but if you look closely, you can see how much she's belting her little heart out!

Our sweet little Easter darlings!

   

Enjoying our third annual egg hunt on the roof of our church!

Super sweet video of our girls "talking" to each other :)
Lilee has become so much more talkative lately- it is adorable!!!

We had a lovely Easter dinner at a friend's place with delicious food and another sweet egg hunt in their building's courtyard.  Such a fun way to end such a special day!

 

Back home, Maelee enjoyed opening some more Easter goodies and finding the traditional golden egg.

 

 

What a wonderful celebration! 

More pics of Easter fun here: