Happy Birthday Quailee! Today is your 4th birthday. We are so blessed to be your family. What a phenomenal little one you are. Your birthday party is coming up next month and we’ll share our gratitude for you soon. But for now I’d like to note some of your favorite things throughout this past year as you have blossomed into such a, well, such a, YOU of a person. It’s funny how very much has changed, and yet stayed the same as your big personality lights our home and hearts. Much love…

The Quail’s Favorite Things:

Favorite TV Show: Barney!

Favorite Game: I Spy, Go Fish

Favorite Toy: baby dolls/kitchen toys/books

Favorite Breakfast: apple/prune smoothie, kefir and a bowl of Tastee-O’s with rasins

Favorite Lunch: pancakes with zzzzzzzzz (that’s her word for whipped cream) and waffles

Favorite Dinner: Veggie Corndogs with ketchup

Favorite Fruit: Bananas & Raisins (I’d be hard pressed to say which is number 1)

Favorite Veggie: none if she can help it, but she willing drinks a green-bean smoothie with dinner each night

Favorite Dessert: yes. Just be sure to offer her one, I will say in a mixed batch of Holiday treats she did go for the brownies routinely, and at one of our favorite bakeries she picks the gingerbread man each and everytime inspite of the soft swirls of frosting on every cookie around them.

Favorite Drink: Kefir

Favorite Color: yellow

Favorite Restaurant: McDonalds- and please be sure to get her the Cheeseburger happy meal, hold the fries. If you don’t she’ll swipe yours.

Favorite Sport: gymnastics and rascalin’ with her Stister

Favorite Toy: her duck-ducks that she sleeps with, pretend food and dishes and baby dolls

Favorite Song: “We Are the Dinasaurs!” We practice for gymnastics warm-up and she loves the stomping!

Favorite Book: yes. Girlfriend loves to look through books and be read to. Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom tops the charts along with the “There was an old lady who….” series.

Best Friend: Mariah & Zuzu & Sugarplum!

Favorite Day of the week: I think every day. Monday is gym class with Dad, OT Ginger and PT with Julie, Tuesday and Thursday she goes to public preschool and sees Ashley and Brandi and is always soooo excited to grab her backpack and head out the door early in the morning with her sister as she chants Renee (her teacher) all the way to the car, Wednesday she sees her buddies Monique and Brandi, Thursday she also sees Jodie and Friday she sees Ashley again. Weekends are homedays with her familial peeps. She goes to private pre-school Monday through Friday and loves that she is there with her sisters. Yes, a lot of those are therapists, but the Quail loves to go to school and is pretty territorial over her personal one-on-one time when her favorite grown-ups come to play.

Favorite Time of the day: The Quail loves bedtime, she grabs her stories and is settled in to sharing a bed with Zuzu these days.

Favorite Outfit: It has to have yellow, pockets and twirl with her be it a dress or skirt!

Favorite place to go: school and home- I’d say there is an equal level of excitement for both arrivals

I am ever so thankful for Abigail Charlotte. She is named for my mother and my husband. She is my firstborns first best friend. She is the Buddha in our midst. The light in our family heart. The one who was meant to be. She is my voice, my drive, my conscience, my soul, my journey, my daughter.