Happy 4th Birthday Neely

Neely is four, as of Monday.  I can not believe that.  She's getting so big, and she's so proud of it.  She talks about how things were when she "was little" all the time.  :) 

Not too long ago, while planning Reed's birthday party, it hit me that I hadn't remembered to celebrate it being Neely's golden birthday last year.  So we made up for it, and the day before her birthday this year, on her last day of being three, we had a golden birthday breakfast for her.  She was a tad confused, but liked the attention.

 and the gold stars on her cinnamon roll.  :)

The next morning she had her real birthday.  She slept in, and then I made some eggs and some chocolate muffins for breakfast.  She opened her first birthday card, from Aunt Mindy and Uncle Randy, and was SO excited that it came with a cute memory game.  We played quite a few rounds of that, and she is REALLY good at it.  She beat me, fair and square, a few times. 

Then she put on a dance show for my mom, Reed, and me.

 She always asks to go to the park "with the wiggly bridge", which is my least favorite because it's always crowded.  So she doesn't get to go to that one as often as she'd like.  Of course on her birthday, we took her.  We met Jess for his lunch break and watched them play.

 She chose the meals for the day, pizza for lunch, and spaghetti for dinner.  She got to open some gifts that night too.  Just a few, the rest are for the party.  My mom gave her a Frozen pajama gown, and a Frozen sleeping bag with sleep mask.  :)  She got to cuddle in our bed and fell asleep in her mask, cuddling her kitty.

She wouldn't take off her gown all the next day.

Even for our trip to Walmart, where she got to pick out a doll she's been wanting for months.

 She's our feisty one, not afraid to let people know what she thinks.  She's also SO sweet and loveable.  She makes us laugh all the time, and will ask me out of nowhere if I know that she loves me.  I'll say yes and ask if she knows I love HER, and she says "Yeah, you don't have to tell me all the time."  Ha!  I can see some of my traits in Paige and Cason, and some of Jess in them too, but so far Neely is ALL Neely.  She is FAR more open with her feelings than either of us.  Everyone who spends any real amount of time with her will get to know her.  She's not a private person, like her parents.  At least not so far.  She has a TON of personality.  We love this girl.  She's adorable, tough, smart and funny, and so many other things I can't put in to words. 

She feels big and all, but she also still likes pretending to be a baby when she wants a little extra lovin'.  It's sweet.  She still adores Reed, and thinks everything he does is the cutest thing in the world.

 

She drew this for me.  Some dinosaurs of course, beneath a crescent moon, sun, and dragon if I'm remembering right.

 

We've started doing an interview with the same questions on their birthdays.  I'm sure most of you have seen this already on instagram, but it's a good little window into who Meewee is.  Love this sweet girl so much.  You make us so proud, and I would do anything for you Neely!  Happy birthday!