Emmalyn's 3rd birthday 4-13-17

Cute words she says wrong - "Restauronk" for Restaurant, "Molana" for Moana.  I love her sweet little lisp.

Counts to 20 but always skips 16.  Knows her letters but depends on the day may forget some.  She has been working on sight words with Brittany and knows 13 of them.

Pretty solid usually on her colors.

She knows her birthday is April 13th and totally understood that starting on the 13th she would be three years old.

Won't let me choose her clothes all the time now - so we compromise.  I choose one day and she chooses the next day.  She's great at putting on clothes as long as there are no buttons, snaps, or zippers.

Doing great with potty training.  Only 1 or two accidents a week (we still put a diaper on her during nap/sleep).  She's really aware though and when we are going somewhere she will ask if there is a bathroom there so she knows she will be able to go.  She ends up going multiple times when we are out of the house.  (At the baseball game I think she went 8 times)

Loves the movie Moana right now.

She loves Kindermusik and loves to sing.  I'm really impressed with her memory for music and she can match pitch at times but better than Maxwell could.  At Kindermusik she's super engaged and likes to try and take charge and tell Ms. Carolyn what she should do.

She's an animal lover, especially dogs.

She loves her brother and cousins Landen and Hayden.  She is like their shadow and wants to be playing and doing what they are doing whether it's a game or baseball outside or riding bikes.  She's great at riding her trike.

She likes to color and write with pens.  Not close to writing her name yet.  I just started introducing her to writing an E the other day.  Poor girl is going to have a much harder time learning to write her name compared to Max.

She's very much your usual kid eater.  For breakfast she likes cereal and milk (while watching her ipad) and for lunch she likes peanut butter and jelly.  For dinner she would love to eat pizza, mac n cheese, or chicken nuggets every night.

She will eat more types of veggies than Maxwell does and even eats tomatoes sometimes (I'm super proud of that).

At bedtime she always wants daddy to brush her teeth because he will let her watch Moana videos on his phone while he's brushing her teeth.  (She brushes them in the morning).  She likes to cuddle and sing songs.  She hasn't slept with a sleep sack for probably 5 months and now sleeps with the fleece Peppa Pig blanket she got for Christmas.  She is not a very sound sleeper and often wakes up when we walk in the room.  Plus, I often hear her cry out in the night with her dreams and even talk in her sleep.  But when I go in there to check on her, she's asleep.  One of the last things she always says before we close her door at night is she tells you that in the morning she wants cereal & milk and to watch the ipad and play on the ipad.

She still takes a nap in the afternoon that's usually 1 1/2 to 2 hours long.

She's a cuddler and likes physical touch.  She will rub your back or your arm if she's next to you or she will scoot super close to you on the couch so that you are touching.  I love it when we are cuddling at night because she will want our heads to be touching.

She still doesn't have a favorite toy.  It changes all the time.  She does like to play with her doll house.

She's wild and would jump all over the couch if we let her.  I keep trying to get her to go jump on the trampoline she got for Christmas but she never does.

Like a typical 3 year old she's quick to cry if she doesn't get her way but she also can shut it off super quickly if we remind her that she needs to use her words instead.

She's super polite and says "excuse me" if someone is in her way, or thank you and please.  She's really aware of when someone is giving her a compliment and will say thank you.  She's also pretty demanding and has no problem telling you what to do.

She loves wearing her squeeky shoes and while they totally annoy Peter, I find it great to know at all times where she's at.  She also loves wearing her boots.

She doesn't want to kiss Peter except on his forehead because his face is "spikey"

It's great when you get home because as soon as she hears mom or dad come in she will yell "mommy" (or daddy) and run full at you.

Different than Max in that when she's done eating her cereal in the morning she wants to come in and cuddle rather than keep watching her ipad.

Her curly hair is crazy.  When you do it, it's super cute but she will want it undone when she takes a nap so usually her hair looks great in the morning and then awful the rest of the day.

She loves ice in her water.
She calls Maxwell "brother"  and is always super aware of what he's up to and where he is.  They are starting to have conversations and really engage with each other (he's also starting to be willing to help her with things).

She loves swimming but doesn't want to go to the bottom of the pool to get the ring. I am hoping she will be swimming a little bit on her own this summer but we'll see.

She's at the phase where she's fascinated with whether or not everyone has a penis.  "Does he have a Peanuts Momma?"  All the time.  And she will ask for people that she already knows the answer.

For her birthday she wanted "a doll that closes it's eyes when it sleeps"  and for her birthday dinner she asked for Jambalaya (that was out of left field for me) but then didn't really eat it because she still rarely eats more than a couple bites at dinner.

She's a great cheerleader and loves to cheer on others (especially her brother).  For example, during Maxwell's Kinder program, she cheered for him multiple times. "woo Go, Maxwell!"

Maxwell 3 year old photo shoot

Took some pictures with Maxwell...similar to when he turned one.  My lawn doesn't look as nice as it did back then (stinking water restrictions) and the day was super sunny (stinking shadows).  Oh well.

Maxwell's 3 Yr Old Birthday Party!

When it came time to plan Maxwell's party, I struggled with what the theme should be.  He isn't really crazy passionate about anything specific like Dora, Toy Story, Legos, Trucks, etc.  Plus, I didn't aspire to doing something really complicated.  I decided to do a "circle" party and just have everything be focused on circles.  I was really happy with how it turned out.

The e-invitations I sent out

The decorations weren't complicated but still took awhile to get up.  We decorated the night before the party after Maxwell went to sleep.  I appreciated having Brittany's help - I am so lucky to have her as a partner in so many things!

When Max woke up and saw the decorations, he was SO EXCITED!  The first thing he said was, "Wow. It's my party. Can we get the cake now?"  :)  I explained he'd have to wait a couple hours.

Instead of a traditional cake we did a doughnut cake.  I thought it turned out really cute.

Caterpillar (or as Max corrects us -not "Caterpiller" instead it's "Catapillah".  Say it with a British accent like the show Pokoyo)

I love the birthday banner my cousin Michelle made for me.  It's absolutely perfect and I can't wait to use it for every birthday!

"Maxwell is three"

Our party favors were mini peanut butter flavored oreos, circle dot markers, and a drawing pad

I had some outside activities planned but the day ended up being rainy so we did most everything inside.  We ate food, blew bubbles on the covered patio, played with beach balls and round swimming tubes, and made fruit loop necklaces.

Max was territorial over this cooler with water in it and sat on it when Ian was standing there.  It was pretty funny since clearly Ian wasn't going to get into it.

Maxwell and Sam

Landen and Sadie

Pretty baby in her circle party dress

Making the necklaces

Evan enjoying his hard work

Three!!

All the kids in the media room playing with toys  (it was quite loud!).  We had 4 friends over and 2 cousins.

Time for "cake"

So excited to finally get cake and to sing Happy Birthday

I **LOVE** this picture and the pure joy on his face when he blew out all the candles.  It makes my heart so incredibly happy.

Video - Max looked up at me this is what he said.  (I made him say it again so I could get it on video.  It was so incredibly cute.)

Evan and Jessica

Andrea and Sadie

Playing trains

Blake, Leah, Ian, Maxwell

Sam and Brad

His birthday balloons

Trying to take a nap after the party but her sneaky hand made its way up to her mouth

I thought the party went great.  I was so appreciative of Brittany and Peter's help to keep everything taken care of.  I was glad I had a few things planned because these kids have short attention spans!  Parties are so stressful to me because I just feel so out of my element.  I just haven't been to enough kid parties to feel confident that I know how they should be run.  Everyone seemed to have fun and there were no big hiccups.  

We opened presents after all the kids left.  This isn't what I grew up doing but it's pretty common here (any maybe everywhere now?) to not open presents in front of the other kids so that the other kids don't get jealous of all the presents (I guess that's the reason)

Our friends Erika and Jake came over after to help us continue to eat all the food (which I'm bummed I didn't get a good picture of!  It was all circle foods like circle PB and J sandwiches, bagel bites, chicken salad on round rolls, carrot rounds, cucumbers, tomatoes, round chips, vanilla wafers, etc.

Ecstatically opening presents

Family picture!  I wish they were better and both kids were smiling but oh well.

Miss Erika got to make a necklace too

Max wanted to show her how to eat it.  :)

I sure love this handsome boy and his fun personality

Silly face with dimples

Trying out Emmalyn's bumbo.  His legs fit better than her chubby legs.  :)