Maddie turned FIVE!!!

Its hard to believe that Maddie is FIVE YEARS OLD! I can remember her being so tiny and me sitting in her room every night singing to her until she went to sleep. Now, she wants me to lay down with her and rub her back. Isn't it amazing how times change?!?!?

Maddie has been very excited about her birthday and counting down the days since Sunday after church. On Wednesday she woke up saying "this is the last day I'm four." She couldn't wait. Alex had a breakfast scheduled early on Thursday morning and she was devastated that she had to wait for him to come home in order to open her presents. We decided that Ashton could give her his when she woke up so she'd at least be content for a while.

As you can tell, she was a little bit excited about the barbie with a dog stroller, dog purse and TWO dogs. That meant they could each have a dog to play with when they played barbies together. (That means no fighting!!!!)

After some breakfast, I took the kids to the pool at the park which is where Maddie asked to go. They played there for about an hour and then they were ready to hit the playground. I took tons of pictures, as usual. Ashton found a little boy to play with right away and they had a good time playing ball together.Here is Ashton taking a little break while he watched Maddie play with some little girls that she made friends with.

Maddie was super excited!!!

We stopped for Wendy's after they were "done sweating" as they both said. They wanted a frosty to go with their lunch and since its Maddie's birthday, she made all the decisions for the day. :-)

I was hoping that after the pool/partk, some lunch and showers, Maddie would be back to the barbie and not concentrating on "when is daddy coming home?" I was wrong!!! She was immediately back at it. Every couple of minutes she asked. When he finally got home, we let her open her other gifts and then they went upstairs to play. Alex brought in her "bigger bike" and called her back downstairs and she was excited. She just recently learned to ride without training wheels but her bike was really too small. She got on this one with a little anxiety but then quickly was ready to take it outside.

She was looking super cute riding around the cul de sac with Ashton!

For dinner, Maddie chose Ruby Tuesday because she said she "wanted salad and college cheese". (aka cottage cheese) So, after her hip hop class we met Grammy (Alex's mom) and Papa Monkey (my dad) at Ruby Tuesday for dinner. We had a nice time and they brough out a cupcake for the birthday girl.

Maddie was in a very silly mood and so I didn't get any serious pictures of her, as you can clearly tell!!!

What is this anyway?!?!?!