Our big 3 year old

Annie turned 3 on Wednesday, September 29th. We started off the day as a family by waking her up at 5:40 so daddy could join us in the festivities before leaving for work. She freaked out as we rudely awoke her by singing Happy Birthday. After snapping out of her funk, she found her hidden presents and then opened them.

She was a tornado opening up her presents, so I hardly got any good pictures. But here are just a few...

Love the nostril flare as she displays her new princess nightgown from Aunt Ashlee & Uncle Phil. 

Birthday breakfast of OJ, bagel, eggs, and yogurt...

We met up with Annie's cousin (and best buddy) Andrew at McDonald's for lunch and serious play at the indoor (it was too hot to be outside!) playland. Wish I had gotten a picture of my sister climbing up the play structure to rescue my nephew who got scared at the highest part of the climbing structure.

For dinner, we enjoyed leftovers at home--sorry Annie, when mommy is past her due date (9/25), that's what you get! And then we headed to a kid's paradise, Chuck E. Cheese, to ride on the rides and have cake.

 

Annie was so excited to pick out her own cake at the grocery store (did I mention that I was past my due date or that it was 100* outside and I didn't feel like heating up my kitchen with cooking that day?). Random turtle cake, but it absolutely made her day to pick that thing out.

We are so grateful to have Annie in our family. Some of our favorite things about her right now:

* Annie loves saying "NO MORE... NO CHANCES!". For example she'll say, "Whitney, you can have one of my princesses, but NO MORE... NO CHANCES!" We think that she heard the phrase "no more, no less" on Sleeping Beauty, but it has morphed into "no chances" at the end.

* She has been working so hard on her "L" sounds in the last 2 months, and now she's great at them. She loves to say, "I Llllllllove Lllllllllllions." Any word with an "L", she makes sure to emphasize that sound. Now we just need to start working on her "r" sounds.

* Just this past week, she has been doing great at recognizing her letters. Most of our conversations in the car consist of, "Mom, is that the letter ___?" (fill in the blank with whatever letter she needs validation for at the moment.) She also likes to ask, "Mom, what does the letter ___ start with?" Doesn't make any sense; she just loves talking about her LLLlllllletters.

* Every night while getting ready for bed, Annie asks Whitney if they can match. The red "puppy dog" jammies pictured above are her favorite to wear when Whitney wears her red plaid ones. The other night she asked Whitney, "Did mommy wash the puppy dogs off your jammies?" because Whitney's nightgown doesn't have little black dogs on them like hers.

* She and Cole have been playing great together lately. While at the park, Annie is usually the bad guy--chasing him around while calling herself Bowser. At home, they like to dress up in super hero costumes and play the greatest little games.

* Oh man, she is a MAJOR daddy's girl. Just last night Tyler took Whitney and Cole to the Halloween store, and I took Annie grocery shopping. While we were out, she realized that Tyler had come home from work, but that he wasn't with us. With her teeth grit together and in the most ticked off voice she could muster she said, "Mommy... Where is my Daddy?!?" and then busted out in tears, "I want my daddy!!" Bi-polar maybe?

* Annie LOVES to make Whitney & Cole crack up... especially at the dinner table. She will say, "Remember the part on [insert movie name] when [insert character name] does _________?" Then she will re-enact the part and get Whitney and Cole giggling so hard.

Happy 3rd birthday, Annie! We love you tons!!