Ryleigh Turns 4!

Ryleigh turned 4 on February 2nd. We celebrated with family and friends a couple days earlier because Aunt Shelly, Owen, and baby Sophie were here visiting from Florida. Ryleigh wanted another Disney princess cake this year (we did Cinderella last year), but agreed on Strawberry Shortcake instead.

Oh, where has the time gone? It doesn't seem possible that the years can pass by so fast! Ryleigh is certainly growing up and changing right before our eyes. She is big into writing letters or doing "crafts" (as she calls it) right now. She has so many pads of paper laying around the house that I can't keep up with her. She'll scribble out a whole page of zig-zag lines, put a sticker up in the top corner, and then present it to us as a letter from her. We often ask her to "read" it to us. I wish I had a recording of all of them. Some are so enduring that they bring tears to my eyes. Most speak of how much she loves us...and the cutest thing, she always ends them with "Amen"...as if she's reading a prayer.

Ryleigh is also our big entertainer, and she takes it SO seriously! For Christmas, we got her a ballet skirt and sparkle princess shoes. She wore them ALL THE TIME! And for her birthday, Grampa Gene and Grama Susan got her a Disney princess ballet outfit with tights and ballet slippers. For the first four days, she only took it off for baths and to sleep. She otherwise needed it on to "perform" her ballet shows. She typically does a gymnastic/ballet/vocal combo! The best part...she prefers to be introduced by a new name (often one she's made up) for every performance, and will sing songs that typically make no sense or sometimes don't even include real words. But she takes her role very serious and is seemingly not shy no matter how many on-lookers she may have. Paul suggested that we enroll her in gymnastic or ballet lessons...I say we should send her to theatre or acting school!

How about this for creativity? She has my purse and hat, her "beach" skirt (as she calls it) and her ballet skirt (or wait, I guess it's also a shawl). I about died laughing when I saw her walk out of her room with this concoction.