*Go here for the first batch of Birthday party pictures.*

My baby girl, my oldest. You are now 4 years old. You have changed so much in the last year and you continue to amaze me every day.

In your 4th year of life, you started preschool and loved every second of it. You asked to go every day of the week and you were always disappointed on the weekends. At school you had a whole little world away from us. You gained a new sense of independence and loved your friends and teachers.

You have pretty much said good bye to Dora, Diego and the Wonder Pets (although you’ll watch them on a rare occasion) to make room for your current favorite show - The Little Einsteins. You use words like adagio, allegro and fortissimo in every day language. The kicker is that you know what you mean when you use them [this makes Aunt Christine very proud]. You are always telling me to speak Fortissimo (or point out that you are). When I tell you to use you inside voice, you’ll say “We can be Fortissimo outside.” Or if you and Alysa are running around the house and I ask you to slow down, you’ll respond, “We can walk adagio”.

You are an amazing big sister and have been so encouraging with Alysa as she’s been potty training. You are always calling her “Honey” and love to be around her. You both have your moments, but mostly you play very well together. You miss her when she’s sleeping in every morning (at least over the summer) and you are always asking if she’s old enough to go to school with you.

You are a total Mommy’s Girl. You are always telling me that Mommy and Gramps are your best friends. No matter how short of a time I may be leaving you for – it can be for all day or 10 minutes. You’ll ask me not to go and will say, ‘I’m going to miss you Mommy.” When ever I come home, I hear, “Mommy, I missed you so much.” You love to snuggle at night and after rest time. But your favorite and best snuggle time is in the morning. You will wake up and climb into bed with me, sometimes laying with me for a half hour to an hour. Some mornings you even fall back to sleep.

Although you love all of your toys and love your collections of Polly Pockets, Littlest Pet Shops and Calico Critters, your favorite past times right now are games and books. Your room is full of books. You have them piled on your end table, under you end table, in your book basket and on your bed. Every day you take more books from the playroom up to your room. Most nights you fall asleep “snuggling” books or on books that you were reading before falling asleep. You love playing board games and card games. Most of what I hear from you during the day is, “Mommy, can we play a game?” You are even now starting to play games independently with just Alysa. You love the pool and are very independent with your floaty vest. Unknown to you I have taken some of your floaties out of your vest so you have to work harder to keep your chin above water. You love to jump in, although you won’t intentionally put your head under water.


You have begun to enjoy learning to write. You have some workbooks that you can trace lines, shapes, letters and mazes. You love to work on this. You also love to work with me on sounding out what words start with. You are so proud of yourself (as am I) when you match a word with its beginning letter.

In the past year, your understanding of your allergy has grown immensely. You are getting better at reminding me or checking with me to make sure your epi pens come with us when we leave the house. You are excellent at finding things on the ground that could be dairy and you let me know that it is there. You are learning to recognize things that you can’t have both verbally and by site. You have even learned how to administer an epi pen and practice on yourself with your epi pen trainer. It makes me so proud to see you learning to both keep yourself safe and advocate for yourself.

It was 4 years ago today that you were born [at 4:48 a.m.]. After 2 ½ years of trying to conceive and 28 hours of labor. You came into the world and have made me laugh over and over since. You are my silly and sweet little girl and I love you. Happy Birthday Kayla!