She's 4 today!

our baby, our little girl, our youngest babe, is four today!

this is so hard for me - even harder than i expected....each of my children's birthdays bring up a mix of emotions....joy for the celebration of their big day, and joy for the constant growing/learning/becoming.....but also sadness that my babies are really no longer babies.....each birthday, i continue to be amazed at how quickly the last year flew by.....i try more and more to commit these fun & quickly fleeting years to memory.....wondering if it will ever get easy to watch my children grow & become less dependent on me.....i hope not

but it's especially hard this year with Corinn.....she's my last.....but the most independent of them all! being the youngest, she's done everything way earlier than the rest.....she was walking at 11 months.....going potty & never looking back 2 months after her 2nd birthday.....and now writing letters & recognizing letter sounds.....attempting to form words! insanity!

but i celebrate this day! i am thankful for our family and the love that we share.....it's so fun waking the kids up on their special day, singing happy birthday as a family as loud as we possibly can.....and to watch the excitement when they're making each other birthday cards......birthdays are special in our house! :0) here's Corinn's wake up this morning

here's a pic of the cupcakes i made for Corinn to take to daycare today.....it's going to be especially fun, because school is closed today in preparation for the nasty weather (that was supposed to start at 7pm last evening and still hasn't really amounted to anything).....so Gabrielle will be at the daycare all day too! i can't take credit for the design of these.....the basic idea came from the nick jr. website.....i just made them 'my way' ;0)

Corinn's birthday party is scheduled for next weekend (and u know i'll post pics), because we're traveling to NC this weekend.....she's so excited about her Dora cake! mama's not as excited since she's already made about a thousand Dora cakes, but hey.....it's my baby girl's birthday - if she wants a Dora cake, she's getting a Dora cake! :0)