Amelia is Four!

Dear Mia,

Happy 4th Birthday!! What a wonderful year you have had! We've watched you grow so much and try so many new things with endless courage and grace and we could not be more proud of you.

We love that you are such an outdoorsy person and that you went to pirate daycamp all by yourself and had so much fun.

We love to hear all of your made up songs and stories and think it is the cutest thing that you can spend hours just making up adventures for your babies/princesses/mermaids/whatever :)

We love that you will swing as high as the trees, but if there is a single spiderweb on the slide you won't go near it.

We love how you give Ellie hugs and kisses and teach her new words (so far so good).

We love your sentimental side that cries when saying goodbye to family and friends.

We love you more than cotton candy and lollipops!

Happy Birthday to our "big kid"!

xoxo

Family visits

We've had some great, quick visits with the Weller side of the family this past week. "Grandpa with the airplane" as Mia calls him, flew down for a day and the girls wore him out! This weekend we visited Ben and Morgan in Maryland and met the gorgeous baby Kaylee! It is so sweet to see them as parents :) and was lovely to get to cuddle with a newborn. Then on to "long haired Grandma's" for a few days of pool playing time! This insane heat waves leaves us no choice but to play in the water :)

Oh, and a cousin of mine put together the most amazing home video with footage from my mom's childhood up through my toddler years. I was blown away by this glimpse at my mom's childhood and just loved seeing her and various relatives playing, fishing, and doing really fun things that no parent would allow today :) And at the end there is a sassy little 3 year old singing "Twinkle Twinkle" that truly resembles a 3 year old (almost 4!) that lives here. Anyway, the moral of the story is that I need to take more video, especially of everyday life, because it is just fantastic to look at years later!

A Midsummer "Poem"

Summer in Norfolk is getting pinker and pinker

Look at the face on this little stinker!

This past week has been awfully sticky,

 

We eat lots of frozen treats,

 We really aren't picky.

We've been doing our very best to stay cool.

Playing and splashing in our kiddie pool. (and only 2 more weeks til we can go to the big pool all the time!)

Stay cool out there!

A Fun Fourth

I have never been the most outwardly patriotic person, but for some reason after you have kids, you really get into all of the holidays. We did all kinds of fun fourth of July activities this year including Mia's first ever bike parade and fireworks viewing! Lots of cute photo opportunites.

This summer is flying by (I'm probably speaking too soon!) and we are really staying busy. A special little girl has a fourth birthday coming up too and has her heart set on a Chuck E Cheese birthday party. Stay tuned!

 Some people went all out on their decorations :)

 Pre-school social hour!

 Ellie tried to make a break for it! I have no idea who this belonged to.