3 years old!

On Saturday, January 23rd, my sweet Bree turned 3 years old! The whole two weeks previous she was soooooo excited....every morning she would ask, "Is today my birthday?" After saying no several days in a row we made a countdown chain. Then every morning she couldn't wait to cut off a link! Saturday morning she woke up at 5:45! It was like Christmas :) Daddy made a special birthday breakfast and then she opening the presents from us. Gabe "gave her" a new dress, which was her favorite gift :) Then we had a party at 11:30 with many neighbors and friends (the details of getting ready for the party will be another post...lets just say it was another memory that was depressing at the time, but can be laughed about now!). We grilled hotdogs and had watermelon (Robbie was SOOOO excited for the hotdogs :) and a veggie tray, and of course cake and icecream. Two neighbors let us use their little pools which we had set up for the kids which they had a blast with. Then Bree opened fun gifts (oh people were so nice!) and we finished off the fiesta with a pinata! All the kids loved it and Bree had such a wonderful time. She is such a sweet sweet girl and I am so blessed to be her mother!

Things Bree is doing at 3:
-She always wants to help me make dinner...and is getting better at pouring the measuring cup into the bowl without spilling :)
-She loves to draw, color, and read together.
-She speaks so well. But now the fun part is all of the Spanish she is picking up on. Not only is she saying the things I say in Spanish has also started saying things that the other kids and parents say, like "come here" and "watch me"...! It's SO cute and I hope when we get to Arizona we can both just keep learning. I would love if she could do a Spanish/English pre-school!
-She can recognize all of her letters and write many of them, including her name (even though she writes it BrEE with a lower case r...it's just so much easier :)
-She loves to sing and dance and has recently started doing "performances" for us (and grandparents via skype) on the coffee table...this includes a song and dancing.
-She can pump herself on the swings and loves it.
-She is really sweet with Gabe and is so willing to help him when he needs. When he is crying or I am changing a diaper and he doesn't like it she will run over with a toy and say, "Here you go Gabe!" And, since she has gotten really into sticks, after finding herself a big one she always finds one for him to (I'm not so thrilled about that as Gabe is :) He loves it!).
-Her new thing is coming into a room and asking, "Are you ok guys?" When we respond yes she says, "ok" and goes with whatever she was doing :)
-She is learning how to earn money and save it to buy something at the store.
-She has been successfully sleeping without a diaper at nap time and has gone almost two weeks at night without a diaper too! (With only one accident!)

I am SO happy to be a mother of sweet 3 year old Bree!