Celebrating Lilee!

And finally, time for some more celebrating of our precious baby Lilee!!!  We can't believe she is approaching four months old in just one week!  The time is speeding quickly away...

She still seems to have some digestive issues which can make for quite a bit of fussiness sometimes, but she has the most adorable smiles and coos with such a sweet spirit about her.  She loves to roll side to side and has gotten really good at reaching for things and holding things which is so fun to watch.  So many sweet interactive times ahead! Maelee continues to shower her with love and affection and it melts our hearts to see her with her baby sister.  We weren't sure what to expect from Maelee with this little addition to our family, and we couldn't feel more blessed with how she has adored her.  It doesn't hurt that she's obsessed with "Frozen," which is all about sister love!!! :)

Onto some pictures from the "3 Month" mark!

 

 

Love that hair!!!

A big highlight from my folks' visit the first weekend of May was having this sweet girl dedicated at our beloved church.  Even though we only have a handful of Sundays left at Apostles, this church has meant so much to us during our time in NYC.  We couldn't imagine a better place to have our second daughter dedicated to the Lord than in the church community that has been our family for nearly 8 years, and supported us through the birth of both little girls.  And it was so special that Nana & Pop-Pop were able to be there to witness this, too. 

Our prayer over Lilee:

Ephesians 3:18-19 (ESV)

     (that you, being rooted and grounded in love,) ¹⁸ may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

 

 

 

 

  What a sweet day- Lilee is such a blessing!!!

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: