Maggie's 4th Birthday

Maggie is a four year old. Insane!

We had a quiet birthday at home. Grammy was still in town and we picked up Daddy from a business trip that morning.

We opened some small presents first. She was very pleased with her new Barbie DVDs. (The big sign around her neck was from a church Primary activity that morning and CTR means "choose the right").



The big gift was a big girl bike. Barbie of course. Notice the awesome little bike for her Barbie dolls that hooks to her handle bars.


Taking it for a test run. Barbie helmet as well. Grammy got a kick out of the whole thing.

Later that weekend in the backyard, the family playing:

Grammy watching the craziness.

A few things about Maggie:

She now uses the "I'm a big kid and that's what big kids do" excuse for every naughty thing she does.

Barbie and Barbie DVDs are her favorite thing ever. She sings along with every song while watching the DVDs and acts out the scenes with her dolls.

She says so many hilarious things in a day I can't keep up with recording them all.

She still loves dancing/dance class but asks me often why she doesn't go to school anymore (the concept of summer break seems to be lost on her).

Favorite game is to get her little sister to chase her. This takes a lot of effort on her part and she squeals loudly when she succeeds.

She scolds me each and every time I slip up and say "stupid".

Favorite food is mac and cheese. It's practically all she eats.

Her daddy is still far and away the greatest thing ever! Adore him she does.

My baby girl is, sadly, no longer a baby. Sometimes I look at her and think my heads gonna explode because I love her so much.

Grammy Visits

We had a lovely time with Grammy in Colorado.

Boulder Pearl Street Fun--although I'm not sure watching the kids play in the gravel and toys is exactly Grammy's cup of tea. She's a good sport though.

We had to get Grammy a cupcake....and the rest of us ate more than our share.

Maggie was fortunate enough to have Grammy stay over her b-day weekend. She let Maggie pick a toy of her choice at Target and, not surprisingly, she picked a Little Mermaid barbie.

Summer Days in Cheap Kiddie Pools

This is apparently how Maggie enjoys the kiddie pool. I got it all set up, filled it early so it could warm in the sun, and she....reads in a chair instead.
At least Caroline enjoys it. This pic is just after she had stuck her entire face in the water, trying to drink it.

The next day I convinced Maggie to get IN the water by putting the chair in the pool so she wouldn't get too wet.

The heat really sucked her energy. She hasn't really napped since she was VERY little.

And this is just a cute picture of her painting.

Last Day of Preschool

Ok, so I'm very behind in blogging! Here are some pics from Maggie's last day of preschool (a picnic at the park). I let her pick the dessert she wanted by looking through a cookbook. She picked the first cupcakes she came across--because they're pink. I made her look through the whole book but she still wanted the pink ones. The girl knows what she wants.

Randoms

Ordinary summer days.

Maggie fell at the park and scraped both knees. You would have thought the world had ended the way she screamed. I thought someone was going to call the police or something. She calmed slightly but freaked out all over again when Daddy saw her. After quite a while on the couch whimpering I cleaned her "wounds" and bandaged them which she was not pleased about. She had a pronounced limp for a good 24 hours. She fell the very next day right on her knees and we started the whole process over again!!
I just love this picture of Caroline. It's just so her and her little personality. The expression is perfect and she's handing me a toy which is what she does all the time and what she could do constantly if I'd play along.

First pickings from the garden. She enjoyed the planting/watering/growing stage but had no desire to taste it.

Pagosa Springs

It seems we've lived an entire summer in just a few short weeks. After our Utah trip we turned right around and packed up for a week in Pagosa Springs with Grandma and Grandpa. We had lovely accommodations overlooking a lake and the girls had a fantastic time!
Maggie couldn't quite stay away from her grandparents. Here she is inserting herself in Grandma's game of Solitaire:

Craft time (Maggie had quite a bit of this). We made a "tie-dye" t-shirt:

Caroline enjoying a little mountain air:

Mini golf:

Daddy really did try to school her on the finer points of the game:

Story/play time:

More craft time:

Caroline watching the story/play time and really wishing she was old enough to join in.

We even did s'mores:

And of course you can't go to Pagosa Springs without actually spending time in the hot springs.

We have to say thank you to Grandma and Grandpa for such a great week!

Maggie's First Dance Recital

The dress rehearsal. All parents were given their tickets to the big show. I did not check my tickets for accuracy--just assumed the tickets were correct.

We arrive 15 min prior to the 3pm show. I take a few snapshots of Maggie outside the backstage entrance. She was beyond excited!

Immediately after taking that picture we tried to check our dear Maggie McCarty in only to be told, "oh...she's the little girl that was missing in our 1:30pm show...". I was furious/embarrassed/scared/etc. All I could think was DON'T CRY IN FRONT OF YOUR DAUGHTER! (cause that's exactly what I was about to do). After a considerable amount of confusion and waiting, Maggie's teacher appeared to take a look at the 3pm tickets she accidentally gave us. It was either no dancing for Maggie or...she dances...alone. Both Patrick and I looked down at our teeeny tiiiiny little 3 year old and asked what she'd like to do. She just looked at us and without hesitations said, "Dance!". And dance she did.

In front of roughly 200 people in a large high school auditorium our little girl danced SOLO. After dancing both her ballet and tap routines she was returned to us, all smiles. We gave her the pink roses we bought for her. She exclaimed, "OH! I LOOOOVE them! Are they for my wedding?"

This is an image taken from my video of the performance so you sort of get how small she was on that big stage.

Driving home Patrick asked her if she wanted to continue with dance. She stuck her thumb in the air pointing behind her and said, "I wanna go back THERE and dance".

She totally earned her pink ice cream at Baskin Robbins afterward!

The video we took of the actual show is very poor quality and shaky but if you wanna see the two dances you can do that HERE and HERE.

Otherwise, here's one dance from the dress rehearsal that's much better quality.

Ok, proud mama that I am, I couldn't resist posting both dance routines from the rehersal. I can't help it--she is just the cutest dancer ever!

Utah Trip May 2010

A few weeks ago I took a short trip out to Utah. This was not supposed to be a short trip but I was not feeling well at all and felt a little stressed out on top of it so...I did what I thought I could and then came home.

First thing were gifts from the Matesens for Caroline's birthday. Maggie was also given a bottle of bubbles that both girls enjoyed. A lot.

My cousin hosted a Mothers Luncheon to celebrate family and our mothers. It was lots of fun (and a few tears) as we reminisced.

Cousin Meredith saved the day by doing the long drive from Utah back to Colorado. She was a super entertainer as we drove through cold, rain, fog, and even some snow. We were lucky to have the busy girl to ourselves for a couple of days.

Since both girls decided they LOVED my sister Charlotte's kids, I was able to spend some one-on-one time with my brother Randy. He has been wanting to record his music on video and post it online for a while now. We did just that. You can see his YouTube music here:
Chicken Wear Socks

Growing More Distant

Sneak Thief

Forever

Cell Phone Pics

Every now and again I dig through my cell phone and look at the (mostly) silly pictures I find. Some I've forgotten are there and some are surprising to find since I was not the photographer. Fun fun.

Here's a very old one. I don't remember if I posted this pic from my phone (and, frankly, I'm too lazy to dig around and find out). Way pregnant with Caroline.

Taking Maggie to DSW Shoes is always a good time. These are the types of shoes she pulls off the shelves and "suggests" I try on. I tell her to try them on. Don't you think she should have purchased these beauties?

Random cute pic of Caroline riding around in the car.

Walking through Restoration Hardware we rounded a corner to find this chaise. Maggie stopped dead in her tracks, lunged forward on one leg, threw her hands in the air and exclaimed, "Mommy! This is the BEST CHAIR EVER!!".