Maddie's Half-Birthday

Don't you just love all her luggage?

Maddie is 3 1/2 today!  Yikes.  Time is flying and I wish it would slow down a bit.  Tomorrow she will get to go on a half-birthday date with her Dad.  She's expecting ice cream (she and Allie got to hump-back on Collin's half-birthday date with me a couple Saturdays ago, which means, we gotta do a do-over for that one.  I didn't get my one-on-one with my boy).  We love  this girl, she is always talking up a storm here at the house.  Sometimes a bit much.  Her latest thing is packing up stuff and transporting it all over the house.  Her favorite place to stop? My bedroom.  I had to finally ask her to move it because the pile was growing everyday.  Bags and bags of random stuff plus her clothes just in case she got to go to her Grandma's house.

She has an awesome sense of self-esteem!  She likes to brush her hair and tell me she's cute, pretty, or yesterday, she said she was "jor-gis" (gorgeous, only she got the sounds mixed up).  She loves to get in my make up, Allie's clothes, accessories, nail stuff, and shoes. Makes messes and loves to carry food around.  Eats brown sugar straight out of the bag. And eats butter like it's peanut butter. Loves white chocolate chips!

I love how she's just stealing a kiss back there, while I am trying to get his photo for the day.

She is so loving and kind.  Showers her little brother with kisses and hugs every day.  Can't stand it when he cries, so she jumps in the crib with him.  Even though she has her own bed now, she still loves to camp out in her brother/sister's rooms.  Mostly Allie, whom she calls "Sissy", because Sissy always reads her stories before bed.  She gets sad when her older brother and sister don't want her to follow them around when they have play dates at the house.  She comes to me in tears telling me all about it, and asks me "can you put him/her in timeout?".

 Maddie back in February.  I had completely forgotten these photos!

In Collin's little fire boots.

But the rest of the time is she is the happiest little girl I can think of.  She goes around the house skipping, playing, watching TV, and always hums a tune - the other day I heard her humming "Praise to the Man".  Someday she is going to make a great pianist too, I think, because she loves to "play" on the piano songs from Collin's music class and even though the notes are not right, she has the rhythm down.  She wants to learn to read, so that is her big task this summer - to learn how to read!  So we are on it, and hope that at the end of the summer she will know how.  Oh, when Allie was her age, I was so eager for that oldest one of mine to learn and grow. I am not sure quite that I want our Maddie Moo to grow so quickly! 6 more months and she will be 4! Love this girl!!