Party girl!

We celebrated Eve’s birthday this weekend.  A good time was had by all.  As usual we had a crowded house and sugared up kids.  She wanted a chocolate party, which is hard to do for a three year old!  I think it went well though.  My nauseous stomach even cooperated that day, though it was back in force the next day. The party continued into Sunday and by last night we were all exhausted!  Today the kids both eagerly took naps and I napped the entire time with them.  Whewh!  One more recovery day and then a mini party for her actual birthday on Wednesday.  Just one more day until she is a big three year old!

I’ll let the photos tell the party story…

Fruit platter

My lovely fruit platter to balance out the chocolate fest.

The birthday girl

The birthday girl in a new party dress from Grammy Lynn.

Cupcakes

The cake this year was in flux right up to the end. Eve and I had a cupcake thing all planned out, then about a week before the party, she started insisting on cake instead. Turns out she wanted the EXACT same cake as our friend Dylan had at his party. We settled on a different style of cake, but the day before the party I realized I didn't have the right pans. Ugh. Back to cupcakes. I had this vision in mind so I made cupcakes and cookies the day before and during naptime on party day my dad helped me set them all up. Then Rachel came in and suggested putting jelly beans on top. Genius! A complete team effort that turned out really cute, and delicious! Thanks all!!

Eve and her balloon

Eve and her balloon, which she calls Tommy. She REALLY wanted this balloon and was asking about it for weeks. It was a big hit at the party.

Three girls

I took a ton of pictures of these pretty girls sitting together. Caitlin, Eve, and Molly.

Three girls again

One more of the three of them.

Kitty

Kitty. Eve loves, LOVES, soft cuddly things.

Eve and the DoodlePro

I like this picture because it looks like she's saying "ooohhh" :)

Too many crowns

Molly was trying to be helpful and put ALL of Eve's new hair bands on her head at once. Eve was not impressed.

Cake time

Look at how excited Dylan and Eve look! They are so cute!

Chocolate covered Caitlin

Chocolate covered Caitlin

Crazy doctor

Who is this crazy doctor!?

Doctor Eve

Doctor Eve gives Molly a flu shot. Eve likes to make sure EVERYONE (people, animals, toys, etc.) gets flu shots daily.

Leftover cupcakes

Totally coincidentally, the leftover cupcakes left a message.

Pancakes

At breakfast the next morning Eve works VERY hard to cut her pancakes.

Reading with Mema

A very tired girl reading stories with Mema

Silly girl

Alan brought in Eve’s spare carseat from his car yesterday and she has been having a blast playing in it.  Doesn’t she look like such a big girl!?!?  This was her baby car seat that she technically still fits in, but we moved her up to a different one in the primary car.

Eve in carseat


Sorry this is sideways. I thought I could rotate it, but now I can’t figure out how!

Swimming

Eve had her first swimming lesson today and boy was she excited!  This is her first lesson with the “big kids” instead of the Mommy and Me group.  She has three other kids in her class, two boys and a girl.  I was worried about her jumping off the ledge when the teacher isn’t looking, but she only did it twice and all the other kids did too.  She is the smallest and youngest in her group.  The age cut-off is 3yrs and she’s a month shy, but the teachers knew her well from the Mommy and Me lessons and they both agreed that she is ready for the preschool group.  The preschool group!!  Such a big girl.

Eve swimming - 1

Look at the eager little face

Eve swimming - 2

Jumping off the ledge to the teacher

Eve swimming - 3

Monkey crawl around the pool. She is such a strong girl!

She drives me crazy

Look at this beautiful girl.  Happily watching Toy Story and cuddling with the baby doll that was mine as a little girl.  So sweet.Eve on the couch

She drives me crazy! I love her, really I do, but she drives me crazy lately! She is frequently one big ball of tears, she answers 90% of all questions with “woof” or “quack,” and she leaves a trail of stuff behind her everywhere she goes. Everywhere! She picks up little things, toys, shoes, rocks, etc, and then puts them down in other places. Like she’s trying to drive me crazy! With Lex at least I can say “go clean up the blocks” and he can do that. With Eve I have to tell her to go clean up… well… everything! We have a rule about putting away toys when you’re done with them, but in order to stay on top of Eve’s trail I practically have to follow her around reminding to her pick up everything she puts down. Then, when she does pick it up, she just puts it on a table or counter, not back where it belongs. It exhausts me! And the constant crying, and baby talk. Oh, so sweet and so exhausting! Want to hear a little secret? One that Alan reminds me about often and laughs at me. When I was doing daycare here I had two little 3yr old girls and they drove me crazy. Why? Because they did the exact same things she does now! Such an amazingly different personality then Lex was at this age, though from a sleep standpoint I’ll take her personality any day! She is sleeping now, thankfully, though I expect her to wake up again later. The past few nights she has been waking up crying. I think she’s hungry because she doesn’t eat much during the day. Why? I don’t know. She’s a nutter.

I was telling a friend the other day who was asking for childrearing advice that each child is different and what works for one may not work for another. I have to remind myself of this frequently and I really need to figure out some tricks for Eve because she’s driving me crazy! But I do love her. Really. She’s so sweet how can you not?!

More Eve

She is so photogenic lately.

Painting rocks - p1

Painting rocks

Painting rocks - p2

Ta-dah!

Painting rocks - p3

Umm... ?

I also want to apologize for my lack of substantial blog posts lately. Our TV computer died a few weeks ago so we’ve been using my laptop to watch Hulu. It works well, except that I really cherished my online time while Alan watched TV. Without that time I find myself with very little time online, which means not much in the way of blog posts. We had a great playdate today at the neighbor’s house, but Alan is waiting patiently to watch TV and it’s late, so I will try to post more tomorrow. Or sometime soon. Until then, here are a few pics and a silly video of Eve.

Storytime this evening –

Hair update

‘Cause I know you all want the news on Eve’s hair progress :) She saw me pull my hair back into a ponytail today and asked me to make one in her hair too. We tried. She has enough hair for it now, kind of, but my hair ties are too big for her. I need to get her some tiny ones for her tiny ponytail.

Ponytail

Then she decided the barrettes would be better. She doesn’t normally like them, so I was happy to play along when she wanted to try again. They are tiny and cute in her hair :) She wore them for almost an hour!

Barrettes

Eve

Eve

We had Eve’s daycare teacher babysit on Sunday night and the kids were super excited. She walked in the door and Eve came running into the kitchen and dropped to her knees to do a fake fall. Eve is normally pretty good at fake falls, but this time she managed to do a face plant right into the floor. Mouth first. Ouch! She got a fat lip with two tooth marks on the inside. She cried for awhile, but she’s ok now, of course. Just silly.

Eve's fat lip