THREE Years Old!!

A Short History of Eliza Mae's Birthdays:


3 yrs. old!

2 Years Old!

One Year Old!

1 Day Old

Negative a few days!

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We had Eliza's 3rd bday, a princess party, at our lovely Pine Island on Friday, April 30th.

The best day of the year!

Eliza was ready to jump in the lake within 5 minutes of her Arrival.

Oh, the beauty of Lake Murray. We love the beauty of the South!

Here's Eliza with her little friend, Sophia! They had a lot of fun together! Eliza was a lucky girl to have about 7 little friends and their parents come to party with her!

It got really windy at one point which made lighting the candles a challenge! We had a couple guys make a wall and managed to pull it off long enough for Eliza to blow all of her 3 candles out! She was sooo cute! I think we got a video of it on Dad's ipod, so maybe I can post that later.

These were some adorable Zebra cupcakes that Steve made for the party! Pretty impressive! He said that he went with purples stripes for the zebras per Eliza's request! Pretty sweet dad (literally, sweet, as in the sugar in the cupcakes, get it? ;)). My mom made a scrumptious and adorable princess cake, but I didn't get a good pic of it. :(

Here is Eliza on Saturday morning after opening up a birthday card from Aunt Joan and Uncle Dean that had some pretty awesome stickers in it. She's enjoying them with her whole body here!

Thank you everyone for you kindness and generosity on Eliza's birthday!
She was ecstatic about this birthday and was going around the house singing, "Happy Birthday to me!" hehe.

I sure am grateful for my spunky little girl! Her legs have gotten so long, and she is no longer the chunky little baby I used to carry around in my sling! She's totally a little girl now, although she occasionally informs us that she does not want to be a big girl or grow up when it comes to following some rule like pulling up her panties all by herself or not using her pacifier. Haha.
Where'd my baby go?
Here are three of my many favorite things about Eliza:

1. I love how much she loves to read books. Every night she cuddles into me as we dive into our books about her most recent fascination- bugs, bats, zebras, birthdays, death, Heavenly Father, the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon, families, school, fairies, etc. etc. etc. It's a special time for us!
   
2. I love how much of a "go-er" Eliza is. She LOVES to be on the go, exploring new places, being outside, and playing with people. She's no homebody! "I want to go somewhere" is a statement she makes often. She's so much fun these days, and lots of times our days together seem like a fun vacation-- the zoo, the children's museum, playgrounds, libraries, play dates, swimming, nap time (okay, that's my fun vacation item), and much more. I think that since Steve and I split up the week, it makes it so that we can get more of our executive or administrative responsibilities done on the days that Eliza is at the other parent's house-- which leaves us a lot more of a chance to focus our undivided attention on Eliza fun!
   
3. I love what a cuddle bug Eliza is with me. She's not really like this with many, but I love it. She LOVES to cuddle in the morning when she's waking me up at 6:30 am in the morning, or when I wake her up from a nap. She often just climbs into my lap to be rocked in a silly way or take a break. Even though she's getting big, she still knows how to be really sweet and cuddly. One of my favorites, though, is that when I pick Eliza up, she yells out, "Mommy!" and comes running to me to give me a GREAT.BIG.WARM.HUG. This kind of hug should have a different word to describe it because it's just that awesome.

I love this kid! Happy Birthday, my girl!