Four is Fun!

Somehow Juliana went from this:

(Little Miss looking more like a Little Mister at like three months old)

And this:

(On her first birthday)

To this:

All grown up, no bottles, no pacifier, no diapers, dresses herself, brushes her own teeth, rides a bike (with training wheels), AND takes care of all bathroom "stuff" by herself.  Seriously, when did all this happen?  It seems like it was only a few months ago that I was staring into that cute little face, wondering what kind of little girl/teenager/adult she was going to be. Ok, enough sappiness, onto the festivities!

Juliana started talking about her birthday and turning four around Christmastime (if only I were joking).  Apparently, turning four is a VERY big deal.  She had all sorts of requests for what toys, cake, and decorations she wanted.  Four is a great age for being excited about everything!  She likes My Little Pony, princesses, fairies, bikes, books, movies, crayons, markers, coloring books, etc.  I could've closed my eyes and picked pretty much anything from two whole aisles at Target and she would've been thrilled.

Juliana's birthday breakfast request was cinnamon rolls and grits.  It's always been a secret dream of mine to be a phenomenal cinnamon roll maker.  In the past, my attempts have been...well, less than stellar.  Fortunately, some friends turned me onto a fantastic recipe site: melskitchencafe.com.  I love Mel!  I don't know her from Job, but I've tried close to 30 of her recipes and they have almost all been hits.  Her cinnamon roll recipe is no exception.  They are a ton of work, but oh my heavens, they are out-of-this-world spectacular!  So much so that Cinnabon better be glad I don't decide to take this gig on the road and put them out of business.  Hands down the best cinnamon roll I've ever eaten and the secret ingredient?  Vanilla pudding.  I'm not kidding.  Vanilla pudding.  Go.  Try it.  And then come back here and we can bask in the yumminess that is the perfect cinnamon roll.  My only regret is I didn't get a picture of the finished product.

Fortunately, I have this beauty - Everett eating an aforementioned cinnamon roll and Juliana next to a big bowl of grits.

After breakfast we got on Skype with my parents so they could see the birthday girl open their present.  Bless you, Skype.

Lunchtime brought lunch, cake and more presents.  The cake was entirely homemade (thank you Mel!), but the decorating wasn't exactly exceptional.  Oh well.  I knocked it out of the park with those cinnamon rolls.

When asked, Juliana claimed she had "the best birthday ever!"  It was a small affair with just our little family, but I think she had a great day and felt very special.  However, I do think we need a refresher course on exactly how often birthdays occur since the next morning when she woke up she exclaimed, "On my next birthday I'm going to turn 5!  And I want a My Little Pony cake!"

(PS - Here's what our four year old does with the sparkly lip gloss my mom sent.  All. day. long.)

A Toss Up

I'm not sure if the thrilling part about this post and these pictures is

A) Juliana is riding a bike!  With training wheels!

Or, Natalie scored a Disney Princess bike for EIGHT dollars and managed to put on the training wheels ALL BY HERSELF!

It really is a toss up.  We're both super duper, you-wouldn't-believe-me-if-I-told-you excited!

What Is This Feeling?

Giselle had a doctor's appt. a couple of weeks ago, and just as I'd suspected, the girl is a big 'un.  Cute and darling, but not small or petite.  She's off the charts for both height and weight and just the cutest little last child we ever could've asked for.  When she was born I thought "Cool!  I'll hopefully be able to use most of Juliana's old clothes for her."  Even though they aren't quite on the same timeline, season-wise, that sentiment has mostly held true.  What I failed to realize at the time is that Giselle is wearing Juliana's stuff about six months prior to the age when Juliana wore them. 

Case in point: Juliana wore this green dress (thank you Kim!) when she was like 22-23 months.  G is sporting it at barely 15 months.  

Case in point #2: Juliana wore this around 19 months, as evidenced here:

(Oh my goodness gracious! I just want to eat her up!  Love that girl.)

And on Miss Giselle:

Way less hair, and not so blond, but still so cute!

In other outfit news (is this seriously where this post has digressed to?) I scored this purple beauty at Goodwill for $3.  It's from Old Navy and still had the tags.  Woot, woot!  Juliana is in love with it, seeing as how her favorite color is "purple and pink" (as though they are one entity).

Now for something non-outfit related, I came outside yesterday afternoon to find Everett helping Giselle ride Juliana's tricycle and it was about the sweetest thing ever, so I took a billion pictures.

While Everett helped Giselle, Juliana sat on the side and played with Ariel and Cinderella.  This entire scenario exemplifies all three of my kids' personalities to a "T".

Giselle's face is classic!

And finally, a funny anecdote to end this post.  At church on Sunday Will and I actually got to sit next to each other.  We were singing a hymn and about halfway through Will leaned over to me and said, "Is it awkward that I can hit the high notes and you can't?"  hahahaha.  Anyone who's had the misfortune of sitting by or near me while singing can testify that I'm not a very good singer.  My range includes all of about 5 notes.  I think I've improved over the years, mostly due to belting it out when I'm alone with the kids (either at the house or in the car).  Will can tell whenever I've taught the kids a particular song because it tends to be either wrong, or completely off-key.

Which is why earlier today, as I was taking Juliana to a play date, and she requested "the girl song" (What's Is This Feeling? from Wicked), I turned it WAAAAY up and we sang to our hearts' content.  We managed to get two playings in before I dropped her off.  And guess what?  I was terrible.  I screeched, I was off-key and it was awesome!

Happy Tuesday!