3 Years Old

3???!!!! Time to face reality. My little baby is growing up. Some evidence:


She started preschool this Fall!

She has become an amazing story teller complete with different voices, plots, and points of views.

Built a repertoire of songs she sings by heart.

A whole other repertoire of books she reads by heart.

Potty trained and can do the whole shabang beginning to end without any help.

Says the cutest prayers all by herself.

Has a grasp on the concept of time and learning to read a clock. (Knows the big hand only)

Builds whole kingdoms and huge towers with her blocks and pink duplos.

Cleans her whole room by herself.

Favorite Activities: Playing with her cats (real and stuffed), coloring, Play-doh, everything outdoors, going to the park, visiting family, reading, going to the movies, playing with friends and cousins, pretending, helping in the kitchen, pounding on the piano while singing, and playing the "Poof" game. (Daddy taught her that one.)

Favorite Color: Yellow (Its been her favorite color since she was 12 months old)

Favorite Words/Phrases: Meow!

Favorite Candy: Skittles

Favorite Song: I am a Child of God (I hear her singing this to herself in bed sometimes)

Favorite Book: "Put me in the Zoo" by Dr. Seuss, among many favs.

Favorite Movie: Milo and Otis (talking cats and dogs? Talk about her dream come true!)


Liz and her love of hats and other accessories is hilarious. She was so excited when we gave her the Rasta hat souvenier from our cruise. Any hat, really, will make her smile.

Lizzie has reached a great phase lately. Her sense of indepence and wanting to always be the one in control and taking charge made for some of the "terrible twos" moments, but we have outgrown some of that and she is more aware of what her boundaries are. She has always been one smart cookie, and that still holds true. She is always shocking us with her grown up way of putting things and her ability to communicate in such a poignant way. When she is at home with her mom and dad she can really show her sweet side by telling us how much she loves us and doing things when she is asked with such enthusiasm. She is a great picker upper around the house at times and her favorite job is to put away the silverware. She really has the good big sister thing down. They have their moments but those moments of good times are outnumbering the negative ones these days. The girls really have a good time playing together, chasing each other, laughing, wrestling, playing with stuffed animals, and coloring together. When Julie naps, Lizzie always says, "I want her to wake up!!"

Lizzie's Birthday Party

Lizzie had her big 3 yr old party at Charlie Safari! It was a day where all of Lizzie's wildest dreams came true. She got to:


Run, jump, play, bounce, and slide down the giant inflatable slides.

Play with her cousins and a couple friends all day.

(Poor Leah got sick on the way to the party and couldn't participate...sad. )

Have "Happy Birthday" sung to her. (She has been looking forward to this moment for weeks.)

Eat cupcakes and ice cream!She even got to eat this Lion's face!! (We all had a good laugh about that.)
Open presents!! Oooh so many presents I might add! And she even got to spend time with Grandma who came just to celebrate with her! That really added to her special day!

One of Lizzie's favorite gifts was this cupcake making kit that Grandma gave her. (you color on the plastic with dry erase "frosting". She begs me every day to let her make cupcakes. Every day is someone in the family's Birthday. We get special cupcakes made for us, then a birthday solo by Liz, followed by the blowing out of the candles and devouring these delicious calorie free cupcakes.

Lizzieisms

Lizzieisms:

Lizzie has been sick with a runny nose for the past couple days. Our conversation in the morning:

Me: How did you sleep?
Lizzie: I didn't sleep good.

Me: Why not?
Lizzie: My nose didn't let me sleep!
My nose said "Stay awake Lizzie."
Then I said, "No, I want to sleep."
Then my nose said, "No I want you to stay awake."

Me: I'm sorry your nose didn't let you sleep. My nose does that sometimes too.



Lizzie and Julie were fighting with each other until I intervened.
Me: No more fighting!
Lizzie: But mommy, this house is not big enough for Julie!!

Carving Pumpkins

Grammy and Papa came over and carved pumpkins with us this year! Its so great having them close by so they can join us for fun occasions like this! Each adult carved a pumpkin. Grammy helped Lizzie carve hers and Papa helped Julie.

Can you guess which one of these is Julie's?

Take a close look at the pumpkins' teeth.

Julie still only has two little spacey teeth on top and now she has a pumpkin to match! So cute!

Halloween Party!

I love Halloween :) Dave and I have thrown a Halloween party every year since we moved to WA. This year was the best with my mom being in town and all.

Well, what did you expect the child of two zombies to look like? (I photoshopped her eyes. No makeup involved.)

This skeleton guy is bigger than he looks in this picture. We had to borrow a bigger ladder from a friend to get him to hang from the top of the vaulted ceiling. Lizzie likes to call him Henry (creepy...i know)

Adult costume parties are the best. My favorite part is opening the door and seeing what crazy costumes people come up with.

My friend Erin helped me make this Cemetery Gate out of card board and spray paint. Total cost= $2.

Decorating for the party was a party in and of itself! We got together with the Pages, McGiffins, and Rivards and had decorating parties! The kids liked to help too. My kids have no fear of scary things anymore. I caught Lizzie playing house with two skeleton heads.

The spider room is my favorite- I am so afraid of spiders its not funny. I dont have a picture of it but we cut out a bazillion black paper spiders with a Cricut and taped them all over one of the walls. Eeeek!

Cheese cake bloody eyeballs on top of brownies? Deliciously disgusting. :)

We took the Pages old backyard fence and lined our hallway with it to make a creepy alley!My mom and I had fun making spider deviled eggs, breadstick bones, spinach artichoke ogre swamp dip, pumpkin hummus, and poisonous black rose cupcakes.

The guests brought a lot of fun foods too!

And the costume winners of the year were:

BEST: Jason as a Ghostbuster. He made his pack himself...very impressive!

FUNNIEST: I don't think Linda the Killer Driller was going for funny but you just couldn't help but laugh when you saw her.

And SCARIEST: The Watsons as Mr. and Mrs. Death. I love how they stayed in character. He was scary and she was hilarious.

What a creepy crawly fun night! Decorations for Halloween can be pretty fun but by the end of Halloween night we were ready to take them down! Every last decoration was packed away by the next day. I guess I can only stomach bloody candles for so long...

Halloween Kitties!

Julie's costume made everyone smile. She's just this tiny little girl walking around in this funny white kitty costume. Julie is following Lizzie's lead and gets very excited about cats so it was cute to see how pleased she looked when she saw herself in the mirror and we told her she was a kitty.

She shocked me with how willing she was to wear it for long periods of time!

Lizzie's dream come true= Holding Meow, petting Meowma, dressed in a cat costume. This girl loves cats in a serious way and was soooooo excited to wear the cat costume that Grandma made for her. Good job Mom!! The imagination time with her stuffed cat Meow rose to a whole new level the week of Halloween. She loved being a kitty for a week!

Whenever we got these two girls in costumes they loved to wrestle. Very hilarious to watch the two kitties tumble around on the grass like real kittens!

Lizzie had all the cat beheviors down: crawling, meowing, hissing, purring, and licking. (Herself or any unexpecting person near her)

It was so fun having Grandma here! She did such a great job with Lizzie's costume. Thanks Mom!

These costumes certainly got used. Two trunk or treats, preschool party, trick or treating, and a friend's kids Halloween party. Not to mention the times we put them in costume just for fun! These kitties got to be really good at Trick or Treating! By the end Julie could walk up to the door all by herself, hold up her Jack-O-Lantern, and say "tree tree tree!"

Back to Blogging

This has been the longest hiatus from blogging ever I think. Between writing a photography class, studying photography principles, Primay Pres calling, Coop Preschool, a string of birthdays all with fun cakes to be made, Lizzie's party, and our annual Halloween Bash (not to mention computer and cell phone issues) I have been using up all my "extra" time. Don't let my fun time fool you though. "Extra" time being whenever I'm not taking care of kids, changing diapers, making and feeding them meals, doing laundry, cleaning the house, paying bills, running errands, etc, etc. All you moms out there know about the busy busy work that a family can be! Well, it is officially time to start documenting ALL of these fun moments again on the blog! (except for the cleaning the house moments maybe)