Happy Birthday to our baby! I guess she isn’t our baby anymore. You are a delight to us. We love your smiles and silly grins. You tell us funny stories, make up fun names for your friends, still make your wonderful excited face, and love playing with your sister. Hearing your voice this year has been wonderful. We love you!

Emily picked to swim for her birthday party. She also picked her party theme to be a Snow Princess party. To be a Snow Princess she got a special blue dress with pom-poms sewn on to make it ‘princess-y’.

We went to a local heated pool to have her party. We started off with some running around a gym, followed by decorating princess shoes with gems (Aiden got a frog to decorate), then lunch of pizza and cupcakes, and lastly all the swimming the little ones could handle. Emily had a lot of fun at her party. She is already planning her next one.

The birthday girl – she was having a good time despite the serious face.

A little pre-party game of tag. They do not understand the game and just had fun running away from Ms. Rachelle.

Craft time

Emily was serious about her shoe decorating. She had been planning for days which shoe she wanted to decorate.

Julia took her gluing seriously. She spread it all over her shoe like she was icing a cake.

The frog turned out pretty cute!

Our table of goodies

Emily enjoyed a lot of freedom in the pool because she was willing to kick herself around on the kickboard. She seemed to have the hang of the kickboard more this day than she has before.

Julia was pretty busy in the pool. Every time the camera came out she seemed to be turning her back to it. She had a great time just playing.

Aiden and his Mama – what a great photo. They both have great grins.

Elena floating on her own

Maeve’s eyes seem to always have such a sparkle

The little girls floating and having a great time together. It is nice to have friends.

Emily’s birthday fell on a Sunday this year which made one of the activities for the day going to church. Afterwards we went to lunch with Grammy, Granddaddy, and Mr. Joseph. Emily picked Chinese to eat so we went to PF Chang’s for dinner. She was a bit excited and had trouble focusing much on her dinner. Not to worry, we took home the leftovers which she demolished the next day for lunch. After dinner we went home and ate cake and opened gifts. The rest of the day was spent playing with the different new toys.

On Thursday when we went to Thursday school, Ashley brought cupcakes for both girls to share with their class. Everyone seemed to enjoy their little cupcakes. I love Emily’s cheesy grin!

Emily has been looking forward to this birthday a lot! She asked for a Snow Princess themed party and has a blue snow princess dress for the occasion. She asked to go swimming for her party too, but as long as she gets to play with her friends she will be happy with any activity.

Emily is our fun loving, active, princess-crazed, prone to emotional outbursts daughter. She is starting to make wonderfully fun comments about the world around her and it is enjoyable to interact with those comments. She also doesn’t miss much of what is going on and secrets are tough, but still possible.

Julia is her favorite playmate in the world. They will play Rapunzel and take turns playing different characters. The new bunk beds make for a wonderful tower in this play. The girls also still love to run the circle of our house; although, Emily is quite certain she wants to win and makes them into races. They also pretend to play that one is the Mama and the other the baby and then take care of each other. Emily loves her sister and enjoys introducing her and finishing her sentences.

Emily is pretty content to play by herself too. Emily loves to take the doll dress-up clothes and dress all of her favorite stuffed animals in the different clothes whether or not the size is quite right. She will drag all of her bedding around the house setting up new places for house. She has taken to building campfires from the building blocks and inviting her stuffed friends to come for camp-outs.

Some of the fun or funny things she is often found to talk about are: her surprise (not-so surprise) birthday party that we are going to throw for her, her future plans for running a hotel and all the detail that are going into its design and management, fascination with different ballet stories and the different variations of the stories.

Some of her other favorites are:

• favorite color – blue
• favorite princess – Cinderella
• favorite food – peanut butter sandwich & sweet and sour chicken (not together)
• favorite place to go out to eat – Chinese
• favorite activity – dressing up like a princess
• favorite clothes to wear – dresses
• favorite blanket – her "baby mouse" blanket that she has had since birth. Thank goodness Mama’s aunt made it big and she can still fit under it although it is starting to get thin now.
• favorite thing to draw – princess’s dresses
• favorite craft activities – coloring and scissor practice
• favorite playmate – Julia (although she would tell you it was Elena)
• favorite person to pester – Julia
• favorite music to sleep to – Baby Einstein – Lullaby Classics
• favorite music to dance around the house to – the Nutcracker
• favorite new discovery – that there is a place called Disney World near Aunt Jolie’s house where Cinderella’s castle is. She is advocating starting a savings fund, so we can go and visit the park.

Julia picked her birthday party this year. When given her choices she excitedly started jumping up and down saying ‘Jum Ouse”. Every time we asked her for the next week she said the same thing with the same level of excitement. After a week of that it was pretty certain she wasn’t going to change her mind.

Our friends joined us for our play date party. We first went to the bounce house and then to Chick-fil-a for lunch. The kids all had a great time bouncing all of their energy out. Julia was brave to try everything over and over again. A few things gave her trouble with the climb, but she didn’t give up.

We enjoyed our lunch together and for dessert we had bowls of icing with different toppings. Who doesn’t want to pick fun toppings to eat with icing. The mama’s got cookies, but the icing looked pretty good.

Julia had a blast at her party which is the most important thing for ones birthday party. The only bummer for the day was that Mama’s camera battery ran out so the photos of moving kids in a low lit room from her phone isn’t ideal, but still a great way to remember the day.

We now have a three year old and she was excited about having a birthday. We recently went shopping and Julia got to pick out a new hair bow. She picked a Hello Kitty one and that also picked her party theme.

She has been changing a lot these past few months. She has been doing some fun things these days. She is increasing her speech slowly, but comes out with sentences at excited moments. We have started potty training and she is showing some promise of figuring it out. She is still napping really well in a pack ‘n play. She likes to play with Emily, but also by herself. She pretty much names everything she can a repeat sound – Ma-ma, Da-da, E-e (Emily), May-May (Maeve), Me-me (favorite blanket), wolf-wolf (stuffed puppy).

A few things that haven’t changed yet. She still gets her ultra-excited face and shakes with excitement. She also has her variety of facial expressions. She has added quite a frown/pout to her collection of facial expressions. She also likes to tease her Daddy by sticking her tongue out at him, to encourage him to chase her around the house.

Julia has developed her own little sister play with Emily. She will give her big hugs and kisses. She is sad when Emily is not around and asks about her as soon as she gets up from her nap. Julia can also be the pesky sister. She knows Emily’s buttons and isn’t afraid to push them. Most of them at this point are verbal buttons. She will word things in ways that irritates Emily. For instance, Emily likes to say the "Eney, meny, miny, mo" rhyme. When Emily proudly finishes saying it, Julia will say "Me, my, mo" and stop. Emily can’t handle the rhyme not being completed so corrects Julia. Then Julia will repeat the "Me, my, mo" abbreviated version. Then the whole things repeats over and over again.

Some of her favorites are:

• favorite color – pink
• favorite color to say – yellow said "yeah-l-low". She likes the "l" sound
• favorite phrases – "me do", "help me", "pick up", and "let go"
• favorite clothes to wear – dresses, specifically a dress with fun flower tights
• favorite stuffed animals – Hello Kitty, finger puppet chicken named "Bawk Bawk", and a puppy
• favorite toy to play with – Thomas train mostly using curved train track pieces
• favorite food – mac & cheese
• favorite movie – Mary Poppins, called "Mary Pop"