Erika, the new 3 year old's, Big Day!

Erika's big day finally came, Saturday, November 10th!  I can't believe this little girl is THREE!!  For some reason that seems so much older than two... I'm not sure why that is.  And the fact that she was my "baby" for so long... ugh.  It's just so hard to lose my babies.  But on a happier note :) (sorry, little miss negative coming out there) she had such a GOOD DAY!!  I think the anticipation is half of the fun, so we talked up her birthday for days!  I think we started the official countdown at 9 days til.  She was so anxious for her day.  She knew who was coming to her party, always mentioning Steve and Alvin :).  She was VERY excited about presents and when they're this young, that's only cute :). 

So we let her open ONE from Mom and Dad- we had wanted her to open this one early so that she could wear it all day.  

I think she liked it :)  She did wear it for a while, but she is so busy, she needed to take it off halfway through the day.  She took such good care of it though, and kept calling it "special" :)  I love that.  She seemed okay with the idea of having to wait til Dad got home to open the rest :)

 It was a lot of fun to sing to her all day and make it her special day.  

Here's a funny conversation (I think it was anyway :) )

I was downstairs after getting all of the kids in bed the night before her birthday.  As I always do, I was making her sign.  I had purposely waited til everyone was in bed so that it could be a surprise, but my little staller, Erika, came downstairs shortly after being tucked in and wanted to watch me.  This was the conversation that followed:

Erika: Dat sign foh Kewy when she has her bohfdate? (is that sign for Kelly when she has her birthday?)

Me: No... it's not.

Erika: What is it foh? (what is it for?)

Me: I will tell you later.

As I was drawing and coloring she kept commenting on each aspect of it, "I WUV pink!" "Pink is my favwit!" "I WUV buttofwies!" "I wike dat polka dot!"  The WHOLE time, it was so cute!  She still hadn't figured out that it was for her for some reason.  When I got done-

Erika: Dat is a weewy nice sign you made foh someone that you gonna tew me waytoh! (that's a really nice sign you made for someone that you're going to tell me later)

She still didn't know :)  Cracked me up.  In the morning someone read the sign to her and she loved it :).  She couldn't believe I had fooled her :)

So as usual, I wanted to do fun things, but Erika wasn't interested.  She wanted to wait for her party.  She was REALLY excited for her party.  We did take a little time to go to the store for some butter for the frosting, and the kids all brought their money to buy her some last minute gifts, but for the most part, we just kinda bummed around.  Erika spent a lot of time with her balloons from her Daddy, then we all watched her new Cinderella movie that I caved and let her open as well.  

She took her birthday bath and then wanted to rock with Mommy so we did, and she just konked out!  She fell asleep faster than I could say, "it's only a half hour til your party so don't fall asleep!"  

She did kind of need the nap though, so I thought it might be good.

She was tough to wake up once everyone started coming.  I felt bad for her because she had been so anxious for her party all day.  She finally consented to opening presents and everyone was okay with that, so even though it goes against everything I'd like to teach my children, she opened presents first thing :).  At least everyone had gotten their food by then, I guess.  That's how I'll justify it in my mind anyway :).  She was UH-DORABLE opening her presents.  I had quickly mentioned to her before opening that she should use her "present opening manners" and tell people thank you or give hugs or whatever, and boy did that sink in!  She gave each person a hug as she  opened their presents.  I LOVED it!!  And I can't believe I didn't get pictures of the hugs!!  I guess I was in shock.  She's not the most huggy person.  And she was even being shy still, but she sacrificed her comfort to give hugs.  I thought it was sweet.  I hope it wasn't too much for her.  She loved all of her presents, she thinks they are ALL special.  That's the fun thing about her.  She's really easy to please (present-wise :) ).  

She's played with the baby Kelly gave her probably the most.  She LOVES it!  And I guess this is her first baby that has the opening and shutting eyes (I usually avoid those ones, they kinda creep me out), and she just loves that her baby can go to sleep when she's holding her in her arms.  It's fun to watch her be a "Mommy". 

I didn't want to spend the day making her cake and cupcakes, so I did the "cake" (it actually ended up being a rice krispie treat) the night before- most of it anyway- and then the day of, I had decided I wasn't going to go all out on the cupcakes as planned, but when she woke up that was all she wanted to do.  "I wanna watch you make my cupcakes!"  So we did.  And we made the little cupcake-in-a-cone "towers" too.  They were fun.  Erika loved them and that made them even more fun :).  I didn't love her "Cake" this year.  I was "mad at it" most of the time that it took to make it.  Then I messed up the front part of it when I put it on the cookie sheet, that made it even less my favorite.  Next time I'll splurge and buy the dumb "dress" cake pan.  Then it won't be so lumpy, and I will be more satisfied with the time spent.

Look how grown up she looks!

She came over and blew out her candles in the middle of the song!  For someone who watches all the birthday singing/candle blowing on Grandpa's phone that she does, she sure didn't know what to do!  

Even our redo didn't help.

I just love this girl.  She is like a good friend to me these days.  I mean, she still has her moments, and the mood swings haven't slowed or calmed down, but she really is a fun little girl to talk to and be with when she's happy.  She's SO smart, so observant, and she is so willing to help out.  She's so nice to have around.  I think we'd really be missing out if she wasn't.

I'll have to make her picture with likes and dislikes when I get a picture I like :)  It's coming!