Happy 4th Birthday, Braelynn!

I know it’s cliche to say, but how in the world is tomorrow my baby girl’s fourth birthday?! I can hardly wrap my mind around the fact that my baby is quickly growing out of being a “toddler” and becoming more and more a little girl. She has grown so much over the last year & we just love her to pieces.

So, tomorrow is her big 4th birthday, but let’s be honest, we’ve been celebrating all week long. Derrick announced on Sunday that it was “birthday week” and we’ve been doing our best to make Braelynn feel extra special all week long. From special treats to special outings, it’s been such a fun week full of concentrating on Braelynn.

In case you don’t know our golden-haired princess personally, here is a little bit about her

• Braelynn is a big helper around the house! She has little “chores” that she does – she sets the table for us every night & helps to carry things back into the kitchen after meals. She is responsible for cleaning up her toys and she does a decent job at it (when she wants to). She can let Abby out & back in, and feeds her breakfast & dinner (and lots of treats in between). She loves to come to the grocery store with me & help pick things out, as well as carry things into the house from the car. She is such a big girl & is always willing to help!
• She loves to be outside – so these cold winter days are kind of killing us. She still uses our furniture like it’s a trampoline (a habit we’re trying to break) and is constantly running around the circle that is our living room/dining room/kitchen. Her favorite is when she can get Abby to chase her (so, that usually means grabbing a treat for the dog & teasing her with it so she runs after her) – the two of them continue to be BFF’s & it’s so cute.
• Speaking of BFF’s – Auntie Ruby continues to remain solidly in the “number one” spot on Braelynn’s favorite people list (she literally asks if we can go see Ruby every single day, and if a day goes by that we don’t see Ruby, the following day is even worse with statements like, “We didn’t see Ruby yesterday, so we have to go see her today!) Braelynn truly loves all of her Aunties & Uncles though and has recently also become really close with her second-cousins Abby & Bekah, whom she affectionately calls, “my girls”. Even though they’re a little bit older than her, they’ve been having regular play-dates & they simply have a blast together. It’s so fun to me, because I remember when my Aunt & Uncle were just married (before they had any kids) and I would absolutely love to spend time at my Aunt Dawn’s house hanging out with them (we did a lot of fun things together when I was little – I have so many good memories). And now, my daughter is going over to spend time at Aunt Dawn’s house & it’s just so much fun!
• It’s so funny, I read back over the post I wrote last year for Braelynn’s birthday & one of the things I said was that she is “always eating”! Well, that trend continues – it has definitely not stopped! This kid can eat. We load her plate up with food, she’ll eat all of it, carry her plate into the kitchen, and then literally say, “I’m hungry, Mama, what can I eat?” She is constantly claiming that she has “a little spot” in her tummy & she needs to fill it up. Derrick has begun calling her a Hobbit – since she has to have breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, supper, and snacks in between!
• She continues to love watching roller coasters on YouTube with her Daddy, but lately, she’s been even more obsessed with waterslides. She is constantly asking us if she can watch waterslide videos! Derrick says that it’s good, because he will run the roller coaster side of our family’s amusement park adventures, and Braelynn can be in charge of the waterslide & water park side of our adventures!
• Braelynn is still pretty obsessed with Daniel Tiger (personally, I hope he never gets “old” for her – he’s such a great character!) but lately, she’s been equally in love with Snoopy & Charlie Brown. In fact, if she isn’t asking to watch waterslides on TV, she’s probably asking to watch Snoopy.
• Her favorite princess is Rapunzel (thus her birthday party theme), but she still has a great love for Anna & Elsa. She checks the status of her hair in the mirror at least once a week to see if it’s getting long “like Rapunzel’s” and we’ve listened to the Tangled soundtrack at least 300 times.
• Braelynn is super into anything art – she loves to draw, paint, sketch – you name it. She constantly claims that she wants to be an “artist like Aunt Emma” (if you haven’t seen my sister Emma’s artwork, you want to check her Instagram account out, here). I got us both spiral bound, blank, watercolor notebooks for Christmas and we’ve been doing these art “prompts” based off a Mom blogger that I follow (who actually lives on the other side of Pittsburgh). It’s fabulous because – not only is it a project we can do together (while baby brother is sleeping) – but because everything is done in the spiral bound book, there isn’t a huge amount of loose paper floating around (but, let’s be honest, we do have a huge amount of loose paper floating around from her independent drawings). It’s so fun to watch her little creative side come out! She truly gets better & better at drawing things every single day.
• She is such a fantastic big sister to Leander! She constantly wants to help by bringing me diapers or blankets or toys (even though, Leander is only 7 weeks old & truly doesn’t understand when she brings him a toy). She finally got over her fear of touching and holding him & now asks to hold him on a regular (sometimes hourly) basis. She only wants to hold him when he’s “happy” though, and the instant he starts to get a little fussy, she is done.

So, that’s just a little bit about our golden-haired princess! This weekend, we will pack out our house (seriously, we invited almost 30 people) to celebrate with a Rapunzel-themed birthday party. It is going to be so much fun & I cannot wait!

Happy Birthday, Braelynn!

And can you really have a January birthday without going out & taking a few photos in the snow??

If you want to take a trip down memory lane, here are the links to the past birthday posts I’ve written about Braelynn!
Happy 3rd Birthday
Happy 2nd Birthday
Happy 1st Birthday