Emily and Elena are in a Mother’s Day Out program together, so we couldn’t pass the opportunity to share a little birthday party. Ashley made the cupcakes and I brought pinwheels and candles. Emily seemed pleased to eat her cake with her class and was happy in a quiet shy way. It was sweet for her Mommy to share this party with her.

Our days change daily as Emily grows and develops. Today is just a reminder of that fact. Three wonderful years ago we welcomed our little bundle into this world and today we enjoy watching her engage the world with her opinion and observations.

We had a fairly quiet day and didn’t get to go out to anything special during the day because of a cold Julia is struggling with. Emily enjoyed a movie and helped make her birthday cupcakes. After helping with the cupcake she preceded to make cupcakes in her play kitchen with interesting ingredients like mustard. For her birthday cupcakes she picked chocolate cupcakes in flower liners. We had to test them to be sure they were OK and enjoy a snack.

For her party we met Grammy and Granddaddy for dinner at a local ‘cowboy’ restaurant. Emily dressed the part with her cowgirl boots. They put us at a special table with an over-sized special chair that Emily got to sit in. She was big stuff in that chair! She enjoyed opening her gifts (all by herself), eating peanuts, snacking at dinner, and eating her cupcake. It was a good day. Tomorrow will be a fun day filled with playing with all of her new toys.

Julia was a little under the weather and was due a re-weigh so we had a visit to the pediatrician. She just had a bad cold, and thankfully it had not turned into anything like the other colds in the house had. As far as her weight, the doctor was pleased that her weight gain had begun again. She gained almost 2 lbs in three months (now 17 lbs 6 oz) and grown to a length of 28 3/4 inches. Her height percentile has remained around 25%. It doesn’t appear that she is going to outgrow Emily and is remaining just a little smaller than Emily at this age. We will wait and see if she is able to pick up steam and surpass her at some point.

Julia will return for another checkup at 18 months to see how she is doing. We are keeping her diet and milk the same for the time being. It is good to see her continue to thrive and explore around her little world.

Julia is answering questions about her breakfast with a new nod and one of her favorite words ‘More’. We haven’t been able to get her to say ‘more please’ yet, but we are working on it. We also see the ‘No’ head nod a lot more often than the ‘Yes’ nod. She is really pleased to be able to communicate with us though.

Emily’s version of the Gingerbread Man – She was quite proud to sing it for me. She will correct herself soon enough, but I want to remember it forever.

Emily and I had some fun with lunch today and used her sandwich to reinforce the letter we are learning this week. The rod pretzels were broken so that she could also make the letter A, but it was much more fascinating to eat than to play with. She thought it was pretty cool. In addition to our fun lunch we read books and looked for the letter A and attempted to trace the letter with our finger.

Tomorrow’s fun food is going to be pancake shaped letter A’s for breakfast. I have a variety of things to do with her to reinforce the letter of the week and we will see how it goes over the next 26 weeks. If every day could be as fun as today was we will be doing well.