Birthday Girl!

Our Baby Girl is 3! We can't believe she is already that old. She seems to grow and change every day.

Here are some fun facts about our little/big girl!

She is a sweetheart, a lovey little girl. She gives the best kisses and hugs. She says, "I squeeze you tight," as she wraps both arms around our necks. She is very cuddly when we put her to bed at night and we talk about what happened in the day- we have the best conversations.
She is very girly. She loves to dress up with jewelry, dresses, hats, purses, etc. She looks just like a princess and will be a princess for her birthday party!

She is also sweet to her baby brother (most of the time). She pets his little head and kisses it a lot, talking to him in the sweet baby-talk voice we use. She is good at sharing with him and helping him (when she wants to be). She has fun playing peek-a-boo to make him crack up laughing at her. He loves his sister and usually wants to do what she's doing. They have a lot of fun in the bath together, splashing and laughing. She likes showing him things and pushing him in the stroller. They are the cutest kiddy team.

She has the sweetest little voice. Tiny and petite, just like her. Our favorite thing is when she says, "I love you!" and we can tell she really means it. She says, "Hey, Babe," to get our attention (because that's what we do). We have to watch what we say around her because she is a copycat! She has been doing a great job asking nicely, like, "Please, can I have..." Before, she was getting in the habit of screaming for things, so this is a nice change. She adds "so really" to anything you might add very to. Such as, "so really fun," or, "so really big." "Squirt" is still her word for squirrel, which is my favorite mispronunciation of hers.

Friends are her favorite play toy! She is a social little butterfly. She talks about her friends a lot. Running around screaming is her favorite activity to do with them. She is also starting to play pretend with her friends (not initiated by parents). She is really good buddies with her friend, Christian, who she sees 3 days a week with mommy swaps and church. She especially loves her little girl friend, Gwen, who likes to dress up and be girly with her. They play very well together, never fighting and always sharing. 

She talks about letters a lot. She will randomly find a letter and say something like, "A for 'ah, ah,' Abby!" She is learning to trace letters, but they are difficult to decipher. 

Animals are definitely her favorite thing. She has a pet, Ferdinand the Fish, who she truly loves. She talks to him and says, "He's so cute" in baby talk. Any animal we see is a requirement to stop and look and talk to them. She loved her birthday fun when we went to the Wild Animal Safari to feed the animals out the window of the bus. She even pet a snake. She has asked to go to the store and get a new puppy, but that will not happen for a while (until mommy's done having babies.)

Arts and crafts are a constant at our house. She always wants to color, cut, glue, paint, stamp, sticker, etc. Her art hasn't turned into things yet, but it is wonderful abstract work. She has an art wall in her room that she is always proud to hang something new on.

We love our petite little girl. A lot of her clothes are either too short or hang off her because of her skinny little butt. She does eat better than she used to, but still is a very slow eater and doesn't eat much. She does love chocolate, ice cream, and candy like all little kids. Maybe she'd weigh more if we let her eat all those treats! She also loves ramen noodles with eggs, scrambled eggs, nuggets, hot dogs, and Fruit and Veggies(dipped in ranch). Really, she'd eat only fruit and veggies for dinner, so we give them to her last, or she'd never get a balanced diet. 

Up until just recently, she played puppies all the time. Abby will get down on her knees and crawl around, barking and yapping, and calling herself a puppy. She will often entice Daddy and Mommy to join her.

She loves the water. Swimming, bath time, puddles, sink water; just not spraying water. Splashing is the best thing to do in it. She is a great little swimmer with her life vest on. She'll paddle for a while until she says, " I need a rest." The water is one of the few things she is fearless about. That did become a problem at the beach when she thought she could follow her daddy out where he was swimming, but she learned quickly. 

She really loves the beach, too. She played in the sand until she was covered in it, digging and pouring water in holes. Then, she played in the water until she was shivering.

Last, I do have to say that she has a strong personality! She is still a toddler, and wants her way, so we are trying to teach her to be patient and accept that she cannot always have her way. She is learning and getting much better than she used to be as she begins outgrowing her terrible two's. She is also still very timid and will refuse to do a lot of things because she is fearful. We are hoping that she will get over this in time, and has outgrown a lot of her fears, like slides and swings (Not inflatable bounce houses!). She is shy of strangers, which we don't mind too much at this age because that could keep her safe.

We Love our Sweet ABBY and are so grateful she came into our life 3 years ago!

On her birthday, we opened presents and just played with the toys inside. She had a blast.

 Then, we had brownies with a candle on top, because Mommy forgot about cake. Oops! We'll have it at her birthday party.