Sisters, and the next best thing

Today is my sister, Katie's, 30th birthday! Happy birthday! In your twenties, you became an amazing wife and mother, and I know you will do more great things in your thirties. You have been a wonderful friend at every age and I am so happy that we are sisters. I hope you had a great time last night!

We all went to dinner and were lucky enough to have the world's best babysitter watch all four of the kids. Stephanie is so great with the kids and we could relax and enjoy the night out knowing that they were in good hands.

When we got home, we celebrated with a cake Steve had arranged- he went to the bakery that made their wedding cake and asked for a birthday cake with the same colors and design. Very sweet, right?

Since Mairead is not lucky enough to have a sister, we are so glad she has the next best thing- a cousin! Her big cousin, Rachel, is a lot of fun to play with and now Mairead gets to be the big cousin to Lily. Today I asked Mairead, "Is Lily your friend?" And she replied. "My little friend. Little sister." Talk about a sweet moment!

When it was time for Lily to go home, Mairead even gave her a hug and a kiss. We love that these two get to spend so much time together and we hope they have a blast growing up as the next best thing to sisters.

And now for the bragging portion of this post. Yesterday, Mairead was coloring and said, "Make a A." And then she did! Then, she just kept going and wrote out the ENTIRE alphabet. No help, no models, no prompting. Since I had only seen her write the letter E for the first time a few days ago, this was amazing! She sat there and wrote them like she had been doing it her whole life. We are SO proud of her! She started on a separate page so this picture starts with E, but she did do all 26. Pretty smart, huh?