Birthdays, Birthdays, Birthdays!

As May continues, more birthday parties have been coming for Morgan. This past Sunday Morgan attended two parties. The first, for her school friend Madelyn, was held at the WV Gymnastics Center. Morgan has attended parties there before, and she absolutely loves going and playing.

Morgan loves to jump on the trampoline and play in the foam pit. She is also able to coax her Daddy into the foam pits as well and they had the best time jumping, throwing foam bricks, and laughing together.

The second party was for Morgan's friend Brady. He is the son of Patrick's best college friend. Morgan and Brady have been buds ever since Brady was born. She likes to go over and play with him. His party was thankfully small and all of the kids played well together.

The day was an overall success. Morgan didn't start to have a melt down until about 7:00, which is awesome considering she didn't have a nap. Really, she doesn't nap much anymore, although we do still make her have some quiet time on the weekends to match what she is required to do at school.

Outside of birthday parties, Morgan had been keeping busy playing outside. She loves to play on her "playground" in the back yard and requests to do so daily, even when it is pouring rain. She has also shown more interests in her computer games lately, which is nice, although I am diligent to make sure she doesn't play too long.

Morgan has become such an outwardly loving child. She is freely giving kisses and will tell us she loves us (and it's not only when she wants something!). She loves to snuggle with her Daddy at night before bed and she always wants to hlep me out with whatever I am doing. She also loves to pet the dog and wishes so much that Bailey would sleep with her at night.

As she quickly approaches 4 I see so many changes in her. She's growing so tall, eating a ton, playing all the time, learning to write her name, and just generally loving life. It's such a joy to watch her every day. She is excited about her birthday coming up and so are we. She is also excited to move into the Pre-K room at day care, which will happen this summer. I can't believe she's almost ready for school!

This coming weekend we will be going to see her Grandma June and Papa Ralph, as we always do for Memorial Day. Morgan is very excited to see her great-grandparents.

More Birthday Fun!

Yesterday we headed out on a beautiful day to celebrate Lydia's birthday (the second of the three girls' birthdays). Morgan was really excited about the party, spending at least 15 minutes telling her Big Pop about going to the party and what she was going to do.

Here are the girls. Morgan was in less than a stellar mood when this picture was taken....are we seeing a theme here?

Morgan had fun hitting the pinata!

The birthday girl blowing out her candles. Lydia had a mermaid themed party.

The girls had a great time playing at the park after the party festivities were over. Morgan is now looking forward to her birthday party, and having her "best friends" (her unprompted words) to come to her party!

Early Birthday Pictures

The pictures are here! As promised, here are a few of my favorite pictures that Brianna Atkins (a.k.a. Pix by Bre) took of Morgan for her (early) birthday. Morgan was in less than a pleasant mood the day we had these pictures taken, but wonderful Brianna was able to coax smiles out of her anyhow. You can see all the pictures on Morgan's Shutterfly website, which is linked in the side bar.

She's all tied up

Yesterday when I picked up Morgan from school the following was written on her daily sheet:

Morgan got a smiley face today. She really enjoyed painting with bubble wrap. She did not nap at all. During nap time Morgan tied her shoelace in knots around the table leg. Ms. Melissa had to cut the shoe string to get her loose.

I was also told that the shoe was still ON HER FOOT while she was tying it up in knots!

You never know what I might find when I get her from school each day. Some days I find sand in her underwear, bark in her rain boots, or one shoelace shorter than the other!

Two New Firsts, and a fun trip

Over the weekend Morgan experienced 2 new firsts, in the same day! Last Thursday we traveled to Knoxville, TN to visit one of my good friends. Morgan had her first times in Kentucky and Tennessee, adding to the growing list of states she's been in. Of course, we commemorated with pictures of the state signs as we traveled through!

She was very good on the trip, riding like this the entire way, watching her movies (THANK GOODNESS for in the car DVD players!).

On Friday we headed into the Great Smokey Mountains to Gatlinburg, TN and the Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies. Morgan was excited, can't you see?

We saw some really awesome things at the aquarium....lots of HUGE fish, jellyfish, sharks, and other under the sea life.

We got to in an underwater tube where the fish were able to swim above us. Morgan thought that was really cool, until Daddy tried to feed her to a shark!

She quickly recovered and enjoyed crawling into the tanks and through tubes to be inside the penguin aquarium. The penguins, of course, were her favorite attraction.

Saturday we did a little bit of educational sight-seeing, but only a little. We went to Oak Ridge, TN, the site of the laboratory that created the atomic matter for the atom bombs. Afterwards we hit a couple of fun play grounds before dinner at home with Amanda, Rob, and Max, their chocolate lab. Morgan and Max had a very love-hate relationship. Morgan wanted to love Max, but sometimes she acted like she was scared of him.

Having a good time with Rob and Amanda.

Overall she had a great, fun weekend. Going back to school today was very hard on her (thus, the frowny face) but I am hoping that once we get back into the swing of "normal" life she'll settle down. Hope you enjoy the pictures and we'll catch you back around soon. Morgan's spring pictures are FABULOUS and I will post them soon.

Gianna's Princess Party

Yesterday Morgan attended the party of one of her very good friends, Gianna. Gianna is the oldest in a group of 3 girls (Lydia and Morgan being the other two). There are 8 weeks between Gianna and Morgan, who is the youngest.

Here are the girls at their first get-together (Lydia on left, Morgan middle, Gianna right)

Gianna had a princess party, and asked all the girls to dress up as their favorite princess. After three costume changes, Morgan finally settled on Cinderella. She and the other girls looked so adorable!

Morgan was a crabby, can't you tell? (In birth order, Gianna, Lydia, and Morgan)

The party was held at Valley Worlds of Fun in Fairmont, WV. It's a very small carnival-type atmosphere. Morgan had a blast riding the teacups with her daddy and bouncing in the bounce house.

We celebrate Lydia's birthday on May 15th (Lydia is 6 weeks older than Morgan) and round out the girls' parties at the end of June. I am so glad these girls are close, and we try to get them together as much as possible in hopes that the early friendship will blossom.

Chuckle Cheese

Morgan has had a very fun week. Monday night she went to Buckhannon to spend a few days with Aunt Linda while Mommy and Daddy went to work in Charleston. She had a GREAT time with Aunt Linda, as always. They played, went out to eat, went to the doctor so Aunt Linda could have her stitches removed from her finger, and watched lots of Disney shows. Thursday afternoon I went to pick her up to join us in Charleston. She had a great time at the hotel and was able to go swimming, which she really loved. She is now tall enough to stand in the shallow end and was so brave to put her head under water very early and often. My baby is growing up!

On Friday Morgan got the chance to spend some fun time with her cousins. Morgan had a date with our photographer to get some pictures done, and although she was less than agreeable during the photo shoot, I think her fabulous photographer got some great pictures. I can't wait to see them.

After the photo session we took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese (a.k.a. ChuckLE Cheese as Morgan says it). It was Morgan's second time and Julia's first time at the pizza play zone. The girls had a BLAST! They ran around totally excited about all the rides, lights, and TICKETS! :) It's always a good time with the kids, but this trip was even more memorable. We can't wait to see Julia and Kole again on Wednesday when we head south for the start of our mini-vacation to Tennessee.

Isn't he just the cutest?! Oh how I love this boy!
Making Mama happy by eating before playing...

Morgan is hiding terrified under the table while Julia gives Chuck E. a low five.

They both loved dancing together!