Thank you, Lord, for the sunny day!

What glorious birthday weather we've been given today. It was 68 and sunny when we headed out and 75 and sunny when we headed home. Perfect! After Nana and PaPaw left for KC, Allison and I got ready and headed to the park. First we picked up Happy Meals (yes, I got one too- and yes, she still calls them "sad meals"- ha!) so we could picnic in the park. We found a nice table in the sunshine and spread out our feast on the princess tablecloth I thought to bring from home (I know, quick thinking!). It was so fun just to sit and enjoy the sunshine and Happy meal with my little girl. We then spent lots of time playing on the equipment before heading to McDonalds for ice cream sundaes. YUM!! The phone picture is to document when Daddy called to wish Allison a happy birthday! :)

Now she's having rest time, and quite frankly, I'm feeling the need for it too! Daddy is on his way home from an overnight business trip and has requested we go to Red Robin tonight. I think tomorrow I'll just drink water all day. WAY too much food these past few days!!

Hope you're all having a fabulous April 30th too! :)

HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY, ALLISON!!

It's official. My "baby" is now three years old!! This morning I made her favorite Belgian waffles, with grapes, of course. She's now out on a bike ride with her Pa Paw before he and my mom head back to KC this morning. The morning started out lovely and is supposed to stay sunny, so we're headed to the park later on today for some fun in the sun.

Conversation at breakfast:

Am I not a little girl anymore?

Well, you'll always be my little girl.

But I want to be a BIG girl now!

Okay- you can be a big girl. :(

Birthday Fun!

Well, our weekend birthday celebration was a LOT of fun! On Friday night we grilled burgers for out of town family that arrived on Friday. Then on Saturday we went to music class and then on to Monkey Joe's, where several family members met us to watch Allison play on the inflatable slides. Then it was on to a Mexican lunch and home for a rest before the party in the evening. We had 25 guests in our home, which I decided was our limit. :)

I think everyone had a good time, but I've decided that adults don't really come to a child's birthday party needing to be entertained. The entertainment is really in the children. We had delicious pizza, watched the videos Scott made for Allison (to be posted later), had fun with a pinata, opened presents, had yummy princess cake, etc. The highlight for the kids included our play room (which was just plain scary looking at the end of the party), and the cardboard castle we got from Birthday Express. The kids could color on it, and they LOVED it! At one point during the night a guest told me that one of the kids was using the markers to paint our hardwoods. Thank goodness for washable markers! :) Allison was up playing with her cousins past the bewitching hour of 10:00, and when her head hit the bed we heard nothing. The next day she laid around, saying, "I had a big day and I am tired!"

Sunday we went to church and then visited with family until they headed back to KC. On Monday night we headed over to our friend Katie's house for her birthday party (their birthdays are just 2 days apart!), and then today Beth and I took the girls to the mall to make animals at Build a Bear and eat out at The Elephant Bar. The girls were very well behaved, and everyone had a great time. Tomorrow is Allison's actual birthday, and sadly I have no plans. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we can go to the park for some fun. Hope you enjoy the pictures. More are being sent to me by people who took more than I did, so I may do a later post of "other" birthday party pictures.

Hat Parade and some eggs

It's tough to come up with daily titles when you write something almost every day! :) I know I have some readers who love Kai-Lan as much as we do, so I'm sure you'll appreciate the picture today. Allison chose "The Hat Parade" episode to watch this morning while I was getting ready. I came in the room to find her working on her own little hat parade. She'd grabbed a pine-cone out of a display by our fireplace and was placing little magnetic letters in the cone, doing a pretty nice job of copying, just like our friend Ho Ho. Sorry, if you don't watch Kai-Lan it really won't make any sense. :)

We then moved on to making scrambled eggs. This girl is a better egg-cracker than I am, so I decided to videotape her technique. My favorite part is how she squints her eyes when cracking it- like the egg is going to jump out and get her!

Just Another Day in Paradise

Yesterday was just an all around pretty good day! In the afternoon we ran some errands and then went to the park to swing, swing, swing. It was a perfect day (for me, anyway) It was 70 degrees and sunny. LOVE IT!! After the park we met Daddy for tacos, checked out our local pet store (she still LOVES the fish!) and then came home to play outside. I love it when the weather gets nice and the neighbors start coming out of their winter caves to chat! We just sat out on the driveway and enjoyed the weather and watching our daughter play with her toys. Last weekend we went to a rummage sale at a school and found all sorts of great buys- this little grill we picked up for $2.50, and she had a ball with it. She was bringing us burgers, hot dogs, etc. It was sooo cute! I think she'll enjoy grilling with Daddy!

At the end of the night when we announced it was bedtime, she simply dropped to the driveway. I love that shot! I kind of wish i would have just left her there. Our nighttime routine is again getting nutty. She just won't fall asleep- keeps needing extra snuggles and such. It was tiring. It's 8:00 and I can just now hear her stirring upstairs. Thank goodness she slept in a little bit. I needed it too!

We just found out more family is coming in town for Allison's b-day party on Saturday. YAHOO!! I haven't told Allison that any family is coming. So far she just thinks it's a few friends. But now we're up to a few friends, 2 sets of grandparents, an aunt, and uncle and 2 cousins. She'll be SO excited!!

Okay- thunder just struck and she's awake NOW- gotta run!

Our almost 3 year old gets a clean bill of health!

This morning I took Allison to have her 3 year check up (sniff, sniff!). I can't believe she'll be three years old next week- wow! She did a great job at the doctor's office, and the doctor declared her "perfect". Her words folks, not mine. Ha! She weighed in at 27 1/2 pounds and is 35 inches tall. I asked Allison if she had any questions for the doctor, and she said to her, "What do you have to do to be a doctor? I want to be one". Oh my! And we thought pre-school was going to break us financially! :) The good news is that last week she wanted to be a baseball player, and before that she was pretty set on being a pumpkin, so it looks like she might change her mind a few times before having to make a solid decision about her future. I just pray she stays as happy and healthy as she is today!

Bathing Beauty, Park Fun, and Magic Muck

This week was a lot of fun, and we've been taking a lot of pictures, thus my 2nd post of the day. Allison is all of a sudden requesting to take baths more often. The other day she asked me, "Do we take baths every day?" When I replied that we usually don't - more like every 2-3 days, she said, "COULD we take a bath every day?' My guess is that she's enjoying "playing mermaid" in there, which is a new thing for her. She sticks both her feet in this little floaty meant for her doll and pretends she's Ariel! :)

Due to the spectacular weather we had the other day, we headed back to our favorite park- it's SUCH a cool place with so much to do. I couldn't believe how much more confident she was this time vs. when we were there last in September. She was climbing everything, trying new things, it was great! I worried more, but it was neat to see her be more adventurous! Her favorite thing is still this fun slide made of rollers. Even the adults get a kick out of it. My legs shake enough as it is- I don't need to go down a slide that accentuates their jiggling. I think Allison went down it about 20 times, laughing every time.

The last pictures are of us copying our friends Beth and Katie and making "Magic Muck". She really did have a great time with it, but boy, food coloring does a number on the skin. You can still see the coloring underneath her fingernails, days later. But we all had a fun time doing science before bedtime that night. Allison even helped us clean up. There's that awesome step-stool again- we are LOVING all its many uses for her new-found independence!

If you don't want to miss any pictures, be sure to scroll down because I have another new post under this one. :)

Pretty in Purple

No stories with this post- just a few cute shots of Allison taken this week. :)

Catching up

I have too many pictures from the last few days- trying to figure out how to spread them out in posts so I don't post 3 times a day! I guess that means it's been a fun week if I have this many little adventures to blog about.

The first shot is of Allison hiding among her stuffed friends. She was in heaven! Of course she wanted to leave all of them in there for bedtime- this coming from the child who went a long time having nothing to do with stuffed animals.

Mom- we asked her about Baby K. Scott said, "Allison, where should Baby K go?" and she said, emphatically,"She can just stay right there in her chair." What is it about that doll???

I decided to take some video of Allison reading her latest favorite book. We are not big fans of Barney (not that there's anything wrong with him, just not big fans), but this was a gift, and she LOVES it!! I love at the end of the video when she can't figure out if the book says pretty or beautiful, so she says prettyful. Precious!

The Literal Toddler

Tonight at the grocery store, I got a specialty cookie for Allison- I saw a Snow White one and couldn't resist. When she started eating the cookie I was in the other room, and I told her, "You might want to eat just half of it now and save the rest for later cause it's kind of a big cookie". After several minutes she calls to me and says, "I'm going to save the rest for later." I cracked up when I saw that she had LITERALLY eaten half of Snow White! :)

Universal Sizing, PLEASE!!

I used to think only ladies sizes were messed up. You know, you go into one store and wear one size- go next door and you can't squeeze into the same size you JUST BOUGHT! UGH! Well, I've discovered that this sizing issue starts early. Case in point. Our first outfit of the day (Moms of toddler girls understand that one outfit a day is NEVER enough) came from Walmart. I bought shorts and a matching top in a size 3T for summer. She was swimming in it. It will probably be fine by August, just not April. Outfit number 2 came from Target. Also a t-shirt and shorts in a size 3T. PERFECT fit! The shorts fit perfectly- might even be snug by August if she gains a couple pounds. Then I bought an outfit today at Babies R Us. The picture is of the new outfit- pretty cute, huh? Anyway, they had a shirt in 3T, which I know she'll need, but they didn't have the skirt in a 3T (something I HATE about that store- I have a very hard time finding a matching outfit in the same size- they lose a lot of my business because of that, but I digress.) I just HAD to have the outfit, so I bought the skirt in a 24 month size, thinking maybe I'd have to take it back. I tried it on her at home and it's a little big, but it will work fine. WHATEVER!! :) I never imagined I'd have to take my almost 3 year old into a dressing room to make sure clothes would fit her, but it looks like I might need to start doing that. I just wish retail people around the world would agree on measurements for clothing, don't you?

Tonight we had a MOPS fundraiser at a frozen custard place, so Allison is on an ice cream high! She and Daddy are making a lot of noise upstairs- sounds like ALL her animals are getting in her crib for a party. I'd better go check it out! I bet bedtime won't come until 10:00 tonight. The price we pay for chocolate ice cream at 7:30! :)

Bubbles and Bikes- again!

Spring, spring, spring! LOVE IT!! My two favorite seasons are fall and spring, so really, I'm living in the wrong area of the country. In the midwest we pretty much get 6 months of summer and 6 months of winter, with a sprinkling of spring and fall thrown in for good measure. San Francisco is the place for me to live, weather wise. It's pretty much springtime all year long with a sprinkling of summer. That's what I miss most about living there, but in most other regards (family, schools, politics, housing prices) I'll take the midwest any day! :)

We were thrilled to get outside again yesterday and enjoy the low 60's temps! Nothing "special" about these pictures, but I thought they captured the simple pleasures of toddler-hood. It really doesn't take much for it to be a GREAT day for Allison! I think her legs have grown since we were on the trike last because it seemed like she had an easier time manipulating the peddles. YIPPEE!!

Our big fun today is "lunch with Daddy", which we try to do every Wednesday. Before we pick him up we'll have some fun at the biggest strip mall in the world (well, maybe not, but it's gotta be close!). Whenever we head that direction and get close to the shops Allison starts chanting, "Babies R Us! Babies R Us!" I haven't been there in awhile because really, I don't have a baby anymore. :( Lately her chant has changed to her favorite place to go, which is the Christian book store. She even calls it that. "I want to go to the Christian book store!!! Can we go TODAY?" I'm not sure what she likes so much about it, but they do have a fun little section with lots of little cute little $1 like toys. Hmmm, I'm guessing that might be it! :) Regardless, I'm thrilled that's the store my child wants to go to more than anywhere else! Let's pray she still wants to go when she's 15! :)

I know, I use way too many smiley faces. It's kind of an addiction. I just love them. :) :) :) Have a happy day! :)

In Princess Heaven!

I had NO idea how out of control this princess thing could get. I have always said my child will never wear items of clothing that call her a princess. And really- this one says Disney Princess, so it's not really calling HER a princess. :) It's REALLY hard not to give in to all the princess "stuff"- it's EVERYWHERE!! And she LOVES it all!! I keep taking these same pictures, sorry, but these were just so cute. I bought her the new nightie today, and as soon as we got home she wanted to try it on with her tu tu. She's got quite the twirling form, don't you think? :)

As an FYI to any of you out there shopping for jammies for spring/summer- consider this- it's REALLY hard for a girl to use the potty by herself when she's in a nightie. Chances are if you aren't in there with her, the nightie is gonna get wet, if you know what I mean. Last summer we were in diapers, so I never thought about it. This will be the last nightie I buy for spring/summer. I'm sure by next year she'll have the "pull up the nightie when you go and when you wipe" routine down, but for now it's a struggle. Live and learn- and pass it on! :)

The Sweetheart Returned!

Thank goodness today was a lovely day with Allison. I'm not sure I could have handled two days in a row- really! We played a lot at home today and then tonight we went to a jump place that had lots of those inflatable dealy bops for kids to jump in, slide down, etc. We found out about it from our friend Katie and we wanted to try it out. It was okay, but honestly, Allison was a little too small to do any of the big stuff they had there. She stuck to the toddler area, which was fine with me. :) We did go down the big slide once, but by the time we got to the bottom she was very upset and wanted off quickly!! The smaller slides were much more her cup of tea.

Cute story of the day- often Allison will be silly and say things like, "What's a Daddy?" or "What's a Shay Shay?" or whatever. Tonight she asked, "What's an Allison?" and Scott said, "I don't know- you tell us. What's an Allison?" and she said, "It's a little girl who loves her mommy and daddy very much!" Oooooh- so sweet!