Wednesday, May 30, 2012

A Three-Year-Old

Our sweet little T-Bear turned three yesterday. Can you believe it? I certainly can't. She's (one of) the best things in our world, and we love her more than life. I'm so grateful that we get to be her parents, she certainly keeps things interesting around here. 

I found this cute idea online, to do a birthday interview with each of your children starting at age three, so here is Teresa's birthday interview. She was doing really awesome with her questions, but then she got a phone call, and wasn't interested in finishing it up. So we tried again a little while later, but she was a bit grumpy for the redo. She also insisted on a chair change before she would continue. Anyway, I think they're cute. Five points if you can guess what we had for breakfast on her birthday.







And, as usual, a look back at her past birthdays: 

May 29, 2009


May 29, 2010


May 29, 2011




Okay, those last two were from the 28th of last year. That picture of her with Marc is such a classic Teresa face, and I just think she looks so little in the one by herself. 

Her present from Gigi and Poppie was ready and waiting as soon as she came down in the morning:


She was so excited to open it up, as soon as she got half the paper off she started saying "oh, it's a cupcake baby!". She loved everything about it, and kept putting her baby to bed and giving it the bottle that came with it. Nora was a bit jealous when she came down, but Teresa was really generous about sharing with her. 

                                             

I love to see those two sweet little heads together!

                                            

                                           

                                           

T took a couple of pictures of Nora during a break from the interviewing:

                                         

After both girls were up and going we went and got Teresa's new bike. She has been so excited to get a bike of her own, she's been asking for one since last November, so she was thrilled to go pick it up from the store and help us put it together. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

                                          

                                         

I was pretty thrilled that she was actually willing to try pedaling! With her little tricycles she would absolutely refuse to learn to pedal, if we tried to show her, she would simply stand up and quit riding it rather than learn to pedal. I was nervous she would be the same way with a bike, but she really tried.

After bike riding and a Nora nap, we took the girls to Sandy Point Beach to celebrate T's birthday. Teresa loved playing in the waves, once she was able to get over the horror of all that dirty sand getting on her feet, of course. Nora hated it for the first half, then once we went in a little deeper she started liking it a lot more. She was so cute, she would pump her little legs under the water and say "kick, kick!".  Teresa loved swimming just like a "wer-maid". We didn't stay too long, but it was long enough for both girls to have a good time.

                                         

                                         

                                         

                                                

                                              

                                             

After we got home we let T open the rest of her presents.

                              

                              

Holding back all those darn curls.

                             

                                           

                                          

                                         

Her favorite show (despite what she says in her interview) is Doc McStuffins on Disney Jr, so she was thrilled to get her very own doctor kit. You better believe we all have already gotten several checkups, as well as every stuffed animal and doll in our house.

                                         

Since we already had a birthday cake at her party we had a donut 'cake' for her birthday. Teresa asks to get donuts every time we pass a Dunkin Donuts, which is pretty often up here, and is always disappointed when we say no, so we figured they would be the perfect way to celebrate her birthday. We stopped at Sonic for some drinks after the beach and while Marc was ordering T kept hollering from the back seat "and I also need to order a donut cake!". She was pretty excited about it.

                                         

                                                     


                                   

                                   

She wanted Mina to come eat birthday donuts with her. That night when I asked what the best part of her birthday was she said it was Mina coming over. They're such cute little friends. Mina drew this card for T all by herself (they're balloons). She has some really awesome drawing skills, hopefully they will rub off on the T some time.


  

This morning she woke up next to me and said "Mom, thanks for all my birthday presents!", and then proceeded to give me a very enthusiastic recap of every thing we did on her birthday. 




Wednesday, May 23, 2012

T's Birthday Party, Part 2

Once T and M's guests started arriving, the bouncing really got fun.


 Don't they just have the cutest little friends?


Mina's parents found this giant bubble solution, and that was a huge hit with the kids as well. 





A really huge hit. It made some seriously ginormous bubbles!




T in a bubble:


I just think this next shot is very Sound of Music-y. You know, the hills are alive, and what not


Some perspective. Our backyard wouldn't have worked because of our hill, but theirs was just the right size for the bounce house.



We had a princess movie going on inside for when the kids got too hot from bouncing.


And then it was pinata time! The pinata actually worked out really well, I think it was a lot easier for the kids to just pull the strings instead of hitting it. 



I love T's hairstyle - she calls it her princess braid. Mina's mom did their cute matching hairstyles, she's got some really amazing braiding skills. T is always asking me to do her hair like this, and I'm getting better at it, but it still never looks even close to this good when I do it. 


Teresa had SUCH a hard time waiting for the cake to be cut. 
  


Look at that face! I guess it was a little cruel to put it right there at eye level while she was waiting for it...


We let the girls each have the fondant version of themselves.


T had no reservations about chomping down on her princess self...
  

  
  
  

Our poor cake!


Then it was present time! Poor Teresa had a really hard time just putting the new stuff down to open her next present. She was so cute, with each new thing she opened she would say "Oh my goodness!" or "Oh my goodness gracious!".

  





Finally some guns of her very own! Since we were home in April and she got to play guns with her boy cousins she has been yearning for some of her own, so she was thrilled with this set. She keeps running around the house with them saying "shoot, shoot".


She also got a bunch of fun arts and crafts stuff, we've been busy all week with her new stuff, all her friends were so generous!


Nora was there too, being cute as usual:


She really, really loves babies right now, it's rare for her to be without a baby doll, so of course she was thrilled to find this little guy in his car seat, right at her level. She liked popping his pacifier out so she could be so helpful and put it back in for him. She was super ticked when he left, poor babe. 



Teresa just had the best time with the party, I'm so glad we were able to do it. She and Mina are the cutest little friends (when they're getting along), and it was fun to celebrate them. Our plans for T's actual birthday are much more low key, but she is still excited to finally, actually be three instead of 'almost-three' like she's been telling people for so long now. I can't believe she is almost three, honestly, it's hard for me to remember life before the T, it feels like she's been a part of us forever.