"Happy Birthday Princess!"

Little Miss picked the theme of her birthday . . . a fitting one I must admit. She has been extremely into all of the princesses this year since collecting the mini dressup dolls of Cinderella, Snow White, Belle, Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, Tiana, Jasmine, just to name a few. Therefore, what she asked for was a princess cake. Of course, that request was briefly preceded by a request for a cat cake (repeat, see 2nd birthday blog entry) and a turtle (huh? don't know what that was about). But once she thought of the princess cake, there was no wavering.

Little Miss was excited about her birthday for weeks before the big day. She jumped right in to help make her cake and did a fantastic job!

Little Miss mixed the cake with the hand mixer all by herself!

The look says it all. "Seriously Mom, the camera again?"

The Cake . . . few! Wasn't sure I could pull that off!

The happy, happy birthday girl and her cake!

Little Miss enjoying being sung too . . . what a difference from her 1st birthday!

Blowing out all three candles by herself (in about 5 attempts, but still impressive)!

So happy! She had a grin from ear to ear!

Every princess needs her own royal castle in which to live, naturally.

Mama Rapunzel took a turn in the castle too!

We even had some cousins . . .

uncles . . .

and Grammie spending time in the castle too!

I don't think my little girl could have been any happier. For days before the party she asked me if everyone was going to "come home" for her party, meaning come over to our house. So cute! She was thrilled to have her family "come home" for her party that day. It really was a lovely day that left us feeling joyful and blessed. I still love this girl more and more everyday! I am so grateful and honored to share these special days and everyday with her!

Little Miss was so blessed to have extended family sending her cards/gifts too. She really enjoyed opening and looking at the cards.

She also discovered (and embraced) the concept of money in a card! Uh-oh!

After finding said money, she quickly scampered off to stash the cash in her princess cash register! Three is going to be fun!!!

Matching

Little Miss got a special treat from K . . . a matching "dolly and me" tutu princess dress. There is little that could please her more. The dress was on Little Miss within 3 seconds of her seeing it, and her babies were each anxiously awaiting their turn to wear the dolly dress.

We had to form a line to keep order among the babies!

Keeping the peace among the babies!

"Snow" much fun

Over 50 inches of snow in 30 days has lead to a lot of this . . .

The snow is actually too deep to play in at this point which has lead to some creative indoor play . . .

My little theater buff!

It is my good fortune that Little Miss has quickly (and at a very young age) become a theater buff like her mama! Most people would think it is crazy to bring a 17 month old to a ballet performance and they're probably right. But in my defense, it was a kid-friendly, one hour, youth ballet performance. Well, that was the intro and it went quite well so we kept going.

This holiday season we hit the theater full force with the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes Christmas Spectacular, the Nutcracker (mini-version), the Urban Nutcracker, and the Broadway performance of CATS. Little Miss is officially hooked. When I told her we were going to CATS, she asked, "Where are our seats?". And as we approached our seats before the show started, Little Miss excitedly said, "I have a big smile on my face!" . . . like I said, she's hooked!

And Little Miss was in her glory at our lastest show, Disney's Princesses on Ice. The toughest part for her was deciding which princess to go as, but she eventually settled on Snow White.

A serious Snow White taking in all the sights and sounds of the show!

Little Miss wanting one of everything - how is a girl to choose?

Kissing the light up wand of choice!

Happy as can be in the glow of a little Disney magic!

Heading back to the car proudly carrying her princess loot!

How many days of Christmas are there?

How many days of Christmas? For us, there have been many . . . starting with the pre-Christmas festivities straight through the 3 days following Christmas that it took for Little Miss to open all of her gifts. It's not that she had so many, it's just that fortunately, she is still in the open one gift and play with it stage. It's a wonderful stage that won't last forever I know, but for now we are enjoying it!

Little Miss sat on Santa's lap for the first time this year and loved it! And what did she ask Santa for??? A reindeer!




We had the great pleasure of taking a sleigh ride to visit Santa with family and friends. Little Miss was in her element among all the kids! She framed this picture herself by grabbing the kids hands, pulling them close and saying, "my buddies"!




Here Little Miss is getting Rudolph to mimic her and dance as she does including a round of "raise the roof".




Family, friends, and Frosty - can it get any better?!?!




Again, Little Miss is bravely befriending the farm animals . . . at least the docile, stationary ones!



Little Miss helped pick out our Christmas tree and then found this one to be "my own Christmas tree". Um, okay.





She was proud of that little tree and was happy to haul it all the way to the car, BY HERSELF of course!




Annual Cookie Decorating Day with the gang! These guys mean business!




Little Miss certainly did not lack any intensity in her approach either!




Well, there had to be sampling. After all, every good baker must taste her creations!




How cute are these little decorators? Seriously!








Ahh . . . Christmas morning! Little Miss opening (and taking the time to read) the first present, a princess look and find book.

Several people asked me this year if Little Miss was excited about Christmas. I would respond that yes she was very much into the lights, trees, seeing Santa around, definitely singing a LOT of Christmas carols. However, I explained that she didn't really get that Santa would come to our house and bring gifts because I hadn't emphasize that with her (felt there was no need at this point). Well, on Christmas morning as she sat with her little pile of gifts she said emphatically, "Santa came to town!". So much for not getting it! Ha!




Another good gift . . . a soft, little animatronic puppy!




A "reindeer" from Santa as requested . . . thank you Santa for coming through on that one!




Day 2 of opening! A few more gifts from the pile until we hit the Erika doll and her clothes, then it was play time again!




Day 3 of opening . . . and a star is born! A rock star!




Jammin' with a pink guitar . . . rock out little girl!




And she can sing too . . . loudly!!


But Christmas was more than just the gifts and events. Little Miss was very aware of the story of Christmas and the reason for the season. She was very interested in the nativity and noticed mangers in store windows, at church, in people's yards, etc. She was so excited to place baby Jesus into our Ethiopian nativity set on Christmas morning, and of course, to sing "Happy Birthday Dear Jesus"!



Now that is a Christmas moment to remember!