little and juicy

This kid cracks me up. She's small and sassy and just so juicy all I want to do is eat her up. Sometimes I stare at her and wonder how many kisses her little fat face has felt over her four years.

Today is a bitter sweet day for her and me. It was her last day of play school. And because it was her last day it was mine as well. She is number four. She is the last one. Every time she does something for the first or last time it is my last first or my last last time as well. Although I am excited about the future and what that means, I am sad, a little bit, that there are no more little ones around here.

Here are a few play school shots taken over the year (actually most of them were today - I never said I was a good photo mommy!)





Amelia has tons of 'personality'. She's busy and imaginative and talks to her friends all day long. She sings to them and with them and tells them they have done a very good job when they have or she tells them to stop interrupting her while she sings alone. The good thing about all these friends is that they don't actually exist so in her world everything is about her and everyone does what she wants. Sometimes the transition to the real world isn't so smooth; hence, the sassy.

One day she came down from quiet time with this on her face...



...I asked her to smile for the camera and she did. Then I asked her what was on her face. She thought about it for a minute and then gave me this face.....



Cute kid.

At Christmas we were wandering the mall and saw Santa at Naturalizer's (the shoe store). She couldn't believe it. We went in and he sat down and asked her to sit with him. She asked him what he was doing there. "Do you need new boots?" she said. "Ho ho ho", he said.



The other day she threw her jammies over the wall and they landed in the 'tree' at the bottom of the stairs. When she came down to get them she couldn't reach them. She fell, devastated, to the floor and cried like they were lost forever. Poor thing. It didn't help when we all laughed.



I love how when we go to Cross Iron Mills she has to eat her lunch at her own little table with her friends. She tells them what to do through the whole thing. Poor imaginary friends.



I love how when she eats her favorite bedtime snack, a frozen yogurt tube, she does it with an oven mitt on. Funny kid.



She has crazy hair and cute teeth and loves to be in her "safe spots" whenever she can and wherever she can.











Today she brought home a flower she planted and we stuck it on the ledge by the window and she said "there, now we can watch it grow." How appropriate I thought. "Yes, let's watch it grow."



I love you Amelia. What a gift you have been. Thank you for being my number 4.