Lydia turns 3!

Our beautiful Lydibug turned three!!

It's hard to believe that really she just turned three because it seems like she's already been three for a while now.

This girl.  Oh my.  She says funny things on a daily basis.  Charlie and I like to repeat what she said to each other to be sure we both caught it, because usually it's something pretty darn cute or funny.

She's incredibly stubborn, but has the sweetest demeanor still.  We never really went through a "terrible two's" with her, but we shall see how her three's treat us.  Even so, she is still my easy baby.  When she melts down, she melts down.... but it's so easy to distract her or get her out of it.  Usually it requires involving something Mickey/Minnie related but that usually does the trick.  ;)  She is so sweet and so sensitive too, easily gets her feelings hurt.  Just a little lover and if sister doesn't want to play she gets sad.

She starting to love to color and draw like big sister.  They love to have me print pictures off the Internet for them to color.  (I google ____ coloring page, usually Mickey coloring page or Belle coloring page for example and click on images and you can get lots of fun coloring pages that way!)

She is much more independent than Natalia was at this age, loves to try and do things herself.  Especially her socks and shoes, or climbing into her car seat/buckling the straps, putting on her clothes/panties etc.

She surprises me all the time with how much she knows too.  Like one day after swim class I was getting them dressed and Lydia pointed to my shirt and said, "that's an R mommy"  and she was right!  I'm still in debate with my head/heart on whether or not to try and get her into kindergarten early.  I know she's smart enough to do it, but then I miss out on having her home with me for that time.

She still loves swimming lessons, she's very serious and attentive during it and does so well!  She is also loving her dance lessons.  She is so excited to come out afterwards and show me her stickers she earns.  I love watching her on the little TV screen to see her prancing around.  Ask her to do any of the moves after class though and she usually refuses.  ha ha ha.  At least going to class is still exciting for her and I love that.  Her little cousins were in class with her, but now it's just Jocelyn.  Cypress started preschool instead... but its still fun to see them together.

She loves playing with the other two 11's.  She's sooo much bigger than them though!  There's a picture that Steph took of Lydia with Cypress, we all knew Lydia was taller, but seeing that picture it puts it in perspective.  I'm excited to take her to her three year well check next week to see just how tall she is.

Obviously she is still Minnie and Mickey Mouse's biggest fan.  I can't wait for Disneyland next month, she is going to be in heaven!

She loves "canberry" juice, pizza, little smokies, cheese, grapes, bacon, waffles, strawberry milk, fruit snacks, and broccoli.  She still loves her thin blankies as well, they haven't been making it out of the bed as often as they used to but she still has a couple of them in her bed for sleep.

She is loving her big girl bed, but we are definitely needing to figure something out as far as getting her to sleep longer!  She went from sleeping 11-12 hours at night with a two hour nap to sleeping 10ish hours and maybe an hour nap to no nap at all.  She needs sleep!  But she's so stinking cute in the mornings it's hard to get mad at her.  ha ha ha.

It's been fun to see her come out of her own shell a little now that sister is gone in the mornings.  We drop Natalia off at school and as soon as I'm back in the car Lydia asks where is Natalia.  I say at school and she goes oh yeah.  Then we go home and put Quinton down for a nap.  We get some good quality time just the two of us then and it's so nice.  She loves to play! She loves her new Minnie bike too.  Another thing we like to do after Natalia goes to school is, put Quinton in the stroller and I put Lydia on her bike.  I push the stroller and kind of pull her along with my other hand on her bike and get her to pedal.  She's starting to get the hang of it and will be doing it all on her own in no time.  She's so so good at doing puzzles and figuring out where pieces go.  We love to get them out during our time alone, we have to keep doing the same few we have but she still loves them.  (Definitely need to get her more for Christmas!)

Favorite show is of course Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but she also loves watching Super Why.

She loves chap stick and would put it on all day long if we let her.  Loves to have her nails and toe nails painted.  It doesn't like to stay on her nails though ugh!

She's so brave!  She had no hesitation this year on getting on the pony or riding the swings at the pumpkin patch.  It was so fun to see her do it!  Then today we went to the pediatricians office to get flu vaccinations.  The girls got the mist but have never done it before (because of Oliver's immune system/liver transplant)  So they didn't really know what to expect other then they didn't have to get shots this time.  The nurse asked who was first and Lydia stepped right up and went for it.

She's still a huge daddy's girl and loves to play outside with him.

Beautiful girl at her birthday photo shoot! 

At dance class with her cousins before Cypress started preschool

Loves to color, and usually on herself.  This one time I asked her if she had drawn all over her face (I was upstairs putting Quinton down for a nap) her response? "No I not mommy I draw on da paper"

With big sister gone I've been trying to do some fun things for her, we print color sheets all the time so I've been printing her own special ones with the alphabet on them. 

Went in one night to get her milk and this is how we found her.  All snuggled in between her two Mickeys.  

This was on my timehop (love that app) I love that it shows her with her favorite Minnie that she still carries everywhere.  

She requested a Minnie party again this year.  Last year's party was of the red Minnie variety, so this year we went with the pink stuff.  Thankfully Walmart had tons of cute stuff and I went to town with the decorations.  For fun we copied the episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse where it's Minnie's Masquerade ball and sent out fun invitations inviting our families to Lydia's Minnie Masquerade ball 3rd Birthday. We had everyone dress up and had a costume parade with the little ones.  They all got participation ribbons and loved it.  It was definitely something fun and different and she loved her party.  She got spoiled with tons of fun Minnie stuff from our families as well.  She would squeal with delight over every present, even the ones that had something in it we already have ha ha ha.   (I've finally updated the Facebook photo albums link to the left and her 3rd birthday album has tons of pictures from her party and I'll add her birthday photo shoot when I get the disc)  As always when it came time to sing happy birthday I totally lost it and started to cry.  I have a problem!  I can't sing to them without breaking out in tears!  I'm just not ready for another year to have gone by so very quickly!  This time Steph caught me on camera and it's pretty funny.   Lydia got a crawling Minnie Mouse from my Grandma Merrill that she adores.  It's been so fun to watch her follow Minnie around and give her kisses.  She also got to go with my mom to Build A Bear and do her own pony like big sister did on her own birthday.  She was so excited the days leading up to it talking about getting her Fluttershy. It was so super cute.

All the older cousins (Dyson and Quinton are too small for the trampoline) We are so lucky to have all our cousins so close and get to play with them all the time! 

I wish I could think of more to write down!  This little girl is so darn special and we just love her to bits.  She means the world to our family and we are so glad she is ours.  We need her sweetness in our lives!

LOVE YOU TO THE MOON AND BACK LYDIBUG!!!