Our house is officially on the market! We covet your prayers for the next homeowner that God has planned for our house, as well as patience as we wait on His timing!
Willow loves Elmo, so that was the shape of her cake this year. Thankfully they make a Elmo face cake mold, which was pretty easy to make. Frosting it was a different story!! Mama had to call in for backup!
Thankfully Aunt Kim was able to turn this plain chocolate cake...
...into this masterpiece!!
Check out Elmo's "fur!"
The cake artist at work!
Owen cooperated by sleeping while we baked =)
Willow had a great time playing with her friends at her party. Unfortunately it was raining, so we didn't get to try out the new pool, but they had a great time playing inside.
Owen dressed well for the occasion, but apparently doesn't like his picture taken.
Meanwhile, Daddy snuck away and had a great time playing funny-guy with a Cookie Monster cupcake...
Eat..sleep...poop...eat...sleep...poop...repeat...repeat. This pretty much describes Owen's daily routine. He's already been a blessing to us by being a laid-back, happy little guy who sleeps well! It doesn't take too much to get him to sleep during the day, although he sleeps better being held or carried in the Ergo carrier. He falls back asleep easily after night feedings and has been going for a 5-hour stretch fairly consistently. Owen doesn't mind his car seat and will fall asleep on car rides. If Owen does cry, it's for a short period in the evening sometime after Willow's gone to bed. Thankfully her sleep hasn't been disturbed by it or nighttime feedings. Owen sure is growing like a weed! We had his one month appointment a little late so we could do Willow's 3 year appointment at the same time, so he was actually 6 weeks old at his appointment, but here are his stats:
Is it mean to make the birthday girl make her own cake?
I'd say she did a nice job!
Call her "Betty Crocker!"
Willow chose Chick-fil-A for her birthday dinner (no surprise there!). It just so happened that it was also Kids Night, so there were free candy toppings for her ice cream!
"I think I'm gonna like this..."
I saw the idea on Pinterest to interview your child on his/her birthdays using the same 20 questions each year to see how the answers change over the years. I thought it'd be fun to video it to get a glimpse of how her personality changes over the years as well. She's still pretty camera shy, so I wasn't sure how it'd go, but she didn't hesitate at all!
The typed out version for scrapbooking sake:
1. What's your favorite color? yellow
2. What's your favorite toy? Mama
3. What's your favorite fruit? strawberries
4. What's your favorite TV show? Clifford
5. What's your favorite thing to eat at lunch? hotdogs
6. What's your favorite outfit to wear? this one (live in the moment people!)
7. What's your favorite game to play? Hide-and-Seek (played with Gramma immediately before this interview...again, live in the moment.)
8. What's your favorite snack? crackers
9. What's your favorite animal? lion
10. What's your favorite song? "Old McDonald"
11. What's your favorite book? Elmo
12. Who's your best friend? Gramma
13. What's your favorite cereal? Cheerios and Honeynut Cheerios (mama's Cheerios)
14. What's your favorite thing to do outside? run
15. What's your favorite drink? juice
16. What's your favorite holiday? Easter
17. What do you take to bed with you at bedtime? rabbit, bear, blankie, water
18. What's your favorite thing to eat at breakfast? enchiladas (?!?!)
19. What did you have for dinner on your birthday? Chick-fil-a
20. What job do you want to have when you're older? doctor and nurse
Here are her stats from her 3-year well visit:
Height: 39" (90%ile)
Weight: 35 lbs (85%ile)
Willow continues to seem more and more like a grown up little girl rather than the toddler we're used to. She speaks in complete sentences and can have an actual conversation, which blows us away sometimes. "Why" is often her favorite question...she can go on endlessly until the parent she's asking usually just stops responding. Chris will often try to nip it in the bud by using large vocabulary that she doesn't understand to explain why, and it typically works! His other strategy is to quickly answer the "why" questions back-to-back without letting her ask "why," and the final answer is usually "God." On the way to church one morning she was on a roll asking Chris "why?" and after he was exhausted answering her, I started answering. Chris got exhausted with how long she was continuing, so he said, "Ok. That's enough Willow." To which she replied, "No, Mommy has more questions!"
She soaks up everything like a sponge and amazes us with her vocabulary. When Alli went out the back door at dinnertime, Willow said, "She's going on an adventure." She sounds so grown-up to me when she uses words like usually or actually. We keep talking about what a big girl Willow is (partially to try and avoid baby-like behavior since Owen's been born), and she'll tell you that she's strong and mighty and has big muscles. In the car she was trying to get the lid off of a snack container. She wasn't able to get it off so she asked for help and comment that she has medium-sized muscles. She has a hard time pronouncing s-blends still (sp, st, sc, etc.). We're used to it so it usually doesn't cause any trouble in understanding her, but there are a few words she says that make us smile: In the bathtub she was pretending a cup was a speaker phone and we were taking turns talking into it. She had me laughing pretty good when she kept asking me over and over again to talk into her "peaker" phone. Chris recently made a step stool for us to use when putting Willow down for bed since she's on the top bunk bed. Willow calls it her "tep tool." =) She also hasn't mastered pronouncing the /th/ sound. When you ask her how old she's turning, the "three" sounds more like she's saying "I'll be free." We keep asking her what she'll be free from (hopefully the terrible twos!!). =)
For her birthday we enrolled her in a gymnastics class for 3-4 year olds since she loves the Fun Bus at school so much. In typical Willow fashion, she didn't do much the first time she went...she likes to sit back and take things in before she jumps in. By the third time going, though, she was participating in all of the activities like a champ!
Willow still loves imaginative play. Taking care of her baby dolls is what you'll see her do most. She also loves putting on performances and enjoys making up new lyrics to familiar tunes. She always has a song in her head!
She's a crafty little girl who loves to paint and glue. She's started telling us what she's painting, which is fun. Willow knows all of her letters and some sounds. She's shown some success in writing Ws too! She definitely has a love for learning!
Willow has quite a memory. I've taken her to a couple events at school, at which she's met a 2nd grade teacher named Ms. Adkins, who is great with kids and has joked around with Willow when we've seen her. I was going to take Willow to a spirit night at a local restaurant and told her that Ms. Adkins might be there. She said something about that being the teacher with strawberries in her mouth. That night I mentioned the strawberries to Ms. Adkins, explaining how I didn't remember it but that Willow has an amazing memory for those kinds of things, and Ms. Adkins said that she DID have a bowl of strawberries at the Talent Show when we were talking. They must've looked yummy to Willow! Willow is really good at remembering names and can name practically half of our congregation at church. She's always asking what people's names are and what their mommy's names are (even random people walking down the street who we wouldn't possibly know). She loves to make up names too. She was handed down a pajama shirt with Disney princesses on it. I didn't know the name of one of them so she made up her name: Cinderellafufufina. Willow is also very observant. We've moved toys around quite a bit in getting our house ready to go on the market. Willow will usually notice that something's been moved the first time she goes back into the room.
Willow still qualifies as a good eater although it's either feast or famine at dinnertime. Some nights she'll eat a good amount and other nights we're telling her to eat "2 more bites" before she can get down. Naps keep getting shorter and shorter (1 hr or so) and she's not consistently taking naps at school. She gets a solid 11 hours of sleep at night though (7:30ish to 7:00ish). Willow's getting faster at going up and down stairs. She'll go up stairs switching feet on each stair now. She still goes down stairs using her right leg first on each step. Speaking of feet, she is not crazy about having anything touching the bottoms of her feet when she's in sandals/flipflops (wetness, sand, dirt, pieces of grass, etc.).
Willow has been an amazingly sweet big sister. As seen in the videos and pictures already posted, Willow loves to kiss him and gaze into his eyes (from merely inches away from his face). She's learning what soothes him - She asked me in the car yesterday if I could take him into the bathroom of the store and feed him because he was hungry. In the car on the way home from softball I asked Willow if she would tell him a story (she hasn't sung him songs when he's upset in the car like I've suggested), but she asked if I would tell him the Cinderella story. During the telling of the story he calmed down and after I finished she said, "He likes that story."
Owen is umbilical-cord-free, so Willow and Owen enjoyed their first bath together this evening (the water is tinted yellow from a Bath Color Drop, not bodily fluids haha):
We're not sure which of us Willow or Owen resemble, but we sure know they look like each other so far!
