February brought pajama day at school. I love checking in on the kids in class and seeing them interact with their classmates. Of course, as you can see by Ella's face in the picture below, sometimes that leads to a few tears. She wanted me to hold her, and I wouldn't, as the whole class was lining up. But for the most part they do pretty well when I come to their classroom, and aren't too clingy to mommy.
I just love their little class. Aren't these kids just too precious?
Seeing Sterling thriving in the classroom makes my heart just soar. When he was so very sick last year, actually, just exactly this time last year, one of the hardest pills to swallow was the idea that he might never be "typical". It was all I wanted for him. I didn't care if he didn't grow up to be a doctor or a lawyer. I just wanted him to be able to grow up. I wanted him to be able to laugh and play and learn and grow like any other child. When we were fist handed the paper work on his diagnosis, all
I could see was the line about severe mental and social impairment. I lost it. But here we are today, one year later and he
is able to be that "typical" student. He's not 100% in line with his peers, and his speech still lags, but he's able to play and sing and participate in a regular classroom setting. And that was all I ever wanted for him.
Our MOPS group held it's second Parents Night Out event. FOUR glorious hours of childcare while mom and dad went out.
We also celebrated our sweet little buddy Ollie's fourth birthday.
Some of us arrived to the party in full princess garb.
Ollie's birthday was followed by another little friend from school, Lilly P.'s birthday at Chuck E. Cheese's...
Where of course, Sterling had fun practicing driving.
All the kids made and decorated mardi gras masks with help from their parents. 
This is a small sampling of our crowd. We truly are so blessed to have made so many awesome friends here. We've just got the greatest group of kids to play with, and I'm excited to watch that group grow up together. 
We had to head down to Marshall County for a family illness, but while we were there, Sterling was in heaven riding around on Granddaddy's tractor. Oh how he loved it! 
Granddaddy let him take the helm. 
She just doesn't look angelic, does she? She looks like a schemer! 
T-R-O-U-B-L-E. That's all I have to say about that one. 
Seriously, the most darling swim suit ever! She keeps asking when it's going to be warm enough to wear her "swim soup and hat". 
We have started a little tradition with our friend Ollie and his mother, my dear friend Tracy, where we hit up a cupcake shop to celebrate birthdays. We LOVE this tradition and have found an appropriately named bakery called "Yummies". 
He was just tickled by the gummy bears on top of Ella's cupcake. A real joker this one. 
Of course, this month brought still more birthday parties to attend. If our weekends are this filled with parties when they're four, I dread what it will be like in coming years! 
What more do you need in life than a good buddy who has your back? How incredibly lucky are we that our children have such sweet little friends! 
We actually had 2 birthday parties to attend in one day. The second party was for a little girl from school/ballet class. It was a princess make over party. Can you tell Ella was in heaven getting her hair and make up done and wearing sparkly dress and jewels? All the girls loved it! 
Don't you just love the pink hair? She did! 
Baby, you should be in pictures... 
This was truly one of the cutest parties we've been to! 
That's my little fashionista. They had a runway where the girls could "model" their new looks. Most the girls came out very shyly. Not my girl, she was working that runway. I was hanging my head in embarrassment! 
We are so lucky to know the most darling group of little girls. And lucky for me they all have really sweet mothers too! 
We got Sterling this John Deere Gator toy last month, and boy can that child drive! He'll spend a day just speeding all around the backyard. It just tickles him to go over bumpy patches or get stuck in some mud! He's a thrill seeker I tell you. 
And for your viewing pleasure, some twinsy pics of the kids. Don't be fooled, they're not always so cutesy and sweet! As you can tell from the pictures, they're still basically the same size. At their 4-year check up, Ella weighed 30 lbs. and Sterling weighed 32.5 lbs. And they're nose to nose in the height department at somewhere close to 40". 
