Maylee's 2nd birthday party

We've had a lot of fun travels and family visits keeping us busy the last few months!  We headed to Tennessee at the end of May to visit Jason's family before we attended his youngest brother's wedding in Missouri on June 9.  So, we were very excited to be able to celebrate Maylee's birthday on June 4th with family again this year!! :) It was such a special time for us.  We had a relaxing morning and played outside on Granmommy and Big Dad's farm, then went to a fun water splash pool with the cousins before having an early dinner with everyone, doing a pinata, and singing and having cupcakes.  A big thank you to our family for helping make the day so special... Maylee had a wonderful birthday!!

Sitting in the gator

Getting ready to go in the water!

Ry really loved it there!

Having a ball playing with cousins Andrew, Daniel, and Ellie!

Ellie's sweet smile :)

Yummy dinner :)

Pinata time!

Andrew, just before he pulled the right string!

Go for the goodies!

M&Ms... yum!

So thankful for this special time with our wonderful family :)

Cupcakes!  Maylee loves butterflies, so we chose a butterfly theme for her party and I made some butterfly decorations and flowers on her cupcakes.  I also made a display of a few of our favorite photos of Maylee from birth to age two on a ribbon with more butterflies (some that Rylan decorated!)... and we had a special photo book with lots of pictures of her from birth to age two, and her Caringbook, a record of her early arrival and our family's stay in Nashville.

Blowing out her candle :)

Eating the frosting - the best part!

Thank you to our family for the fun books and toys!

I made some "roads" from old jeans and gave those to Ry for him to have something "new" to play with too :)

Maylee's handmade butterfly "2" shirt :)

Snuggled up and reading her new books... a perfect ending to the day :)

Maylee is two years old!!

We can hardly believe our little Maylee is TWO already!!  She is an incredible blessing in our lives, and we are so thankful for her each day.  She is a true bundle of energy, excitement, emotions, joy, and curiosity.   She's talking more all the time (four word phrases now, and 4-syllable words - she was so proud of herself when she figured out how to say "avocado" recently), is climbing all around and trying out the big swings on the playground, loves to laugh at her big brother, gives us such sweet kisses and hugs, loves to read (one of her recent favorites is Dr. Seuss's "There's a Wocket in my Pocket" - she can fill in the rhyming words throughout the book... she also loves "The Story of Ping," "1 2 3 A child's first counting book," and her Bible stories).  She'll build little rockets of legos and want us to put them up on the counter (where we put RyRy's creations to keep them from getting crushed by Maylee :) ).  She likes to explore, and will often take off from the playground (like her brother at this age!).  She is still incredibly ticklish and loves to be tickled, almost as much as Rylan.  She continues to be a miracle... right after her early arrival, we had no idea how she'd be doing at this point.  We're so thankful that so far, she's been on track for growth and development (her two year checkup will be in a week, but at her 18 month check up she was in the 90th percentile for weight and height, and when we checked a month ago at home she weighed a healthy 30 pounds).

Here are some of the highlights and most precious moments of her first two amazing years (so hard to narrow it down... there are many other amazing photos)... 

Happy 2nd Birthday to our sweet Maylee!!!  We love you so very much!!!