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Today we’re fidgeting around getting ready to head out the door for the fourth and final birthday celebration for Little Miss Audrey. We’re headed to our local community center to have a gymnastics party, perfect for her Danger Cat personality and the need to get moving on this Winter day. I snapped this photo of her on her REAL third birthday and I think it’s so sweet, capturing her just as she is. Literally.

Birthdays make my mama-heart happy because it’s a day where my life changed forever…..the day my babies came into the world. So, four celebrations for this little three year old.

Four for Three.

Last week Audrey turned three with a bang. So far she’s celebrated at school, at home and with her cousin (whom shares a birthday with her!) at my mom and dad’s house. We still have one more event planned for the birthday girl. It’s safe to say that she’s like me and LOVES her birthday….or, as she says “bir-pay”. I have lots of pictures from her different celebrations, but I wanted to be sure to post a gallery from her 3rd birthday portrait that we did.

I also want to make note of a few things:

1. We did a piñata at our little family celebration on her actual birthday. She’d seen a huge blue high-heeled shoe piñata at the grocery store and had kept talking about it being at her bir-pay. Since she was just going to attend school and have a small celebration at home that night, I followed through and got the piñata. I crammed in a few things for each of us, but what I included for Audrey was a pair of sparkle blue dress-up high heels. And BINGO. It has now been nearly a week and she’s insisted on wearing them EVERYWHERE. To the neighbors, to school, to gymnastics, to Anacortes….she teeters on them and loves them. Two things to take from this: 1: You never know what gift is going to be the gift. 2. Doing the family piñata was super fun, it wasn’t really full of anything, but taking turns just the four of us was a blast.
2. Audrey rocked the school celebration. I haven’t really touched on the fact that she started school at the start of the new year. She’s in the same classroom as Mags and it has been such a good decision. Last year we struggled to make the decision to keep Maggie where she is and everything about them being in the same room and their happiness points to us making the right decision. Anyhow, each child gets to have their own birthday celebration where they get to wear a crown, carry a tiny earth and walk around a larger sun. This is happening while the other students are singing a sweet song. The birthday girl also gets to share a photo and anecdote from each year of their life, making it super special. Since school is so new to Audrey, I wasn’t sure how it was going to go, but she proud-chickened herself around the circle without hesitation. Proud mama moment.
3. We’re not baby people anymore. It’s weird. We’re toilet trained, not napping and some days our girls can’t get enough play time together….they just roll from one activity to another, hauling piles of stuff from one end of the house to the other, chattering all the way. It’s awesome. I joke, often, with them that they’ll ALWAYS be my babies…..because in a way they will be, but having little people that can join in on the adventuring is incredible. I loved having babies, but as we shift into this stage, I’m finding I super-love it too.
4. Speaking of not having babies anymore, my BABY is now three-freakin’-years-old. She is smart,  funny, sweet, full of energy, loud, (like the loudest member in our family when we’re home….hard to believe if we’re in public), night-time snuggler, independent, confident, stylish, cute, vocal, opinionated, hilarious, strong, scared of dark rooms, always trying to keep up, observant, and full of love.

 

So much more to say, but bed time is here and Little Miss Three Year Old is ready to read a book, cuddle and fall asleep in my arms. We might not be baby people anymore, but my second baby still fits in my arms to fall asleep at night…..she’ll always be my baby.

When I was a kid I had a pair of underwear and a matching tank top that looked like Wonder Woman. I can’t say who gave it to me, or even if I knew who Wonder Woman was, but I do know that I liked the matching set. There’s probably a set of pictures that are floating around of my brother and me playing “swimming” and I’m in my undies, just enjoying life. As it should be, as a far as childhood goes.

Also, at my grandparent’s house there was a built-in bar that was probably fully stocked. Mostly just a bunch of bottles, fancy drink plastic stirring sticks, and salty nuts within reach of my grubby little hands.  The bar was very-much a bar, but really the size of a closet and could easily go unnoticed if you didn’t know any better. It wasn’t until decades had rolled by that I actually wondered why my grandparents had built a bar into their home, especially when my grandmother hardly had a sip of a drink. Truth be told, my grandparents were skilled at hosting open houses, family events and having a bar, at the time they built their home, was pretty standard.

My grandpa, being a collector, over the years collected glasses with cartoon characters on them and these glasses lived in the bar, scattered near the salty nuts. Us grandkids would use the glasses from time to time, but they all stood the test of time and suddenly found us all in adulthood. Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Spider Man, Batman, and Wonder Woman…and probably a few more. Last year, or maybe the year before, my grandpa filled a box of these glasses and had each of us pick out a glass. Barry picked Batman and I picked Wonder Woman.

For the most part, Wonder Woman has held a bunch of straws in our cupboard since coming home. When I’ve seen her in there, next to Batman, I’ve smiled and chuckled because it reminds me of my childhood undies and my grandparents….and their tiny bar full of old bottles and salty nuts. I still don’t really know who Wonder Woman is or what she does and we recently finished our fancy straws and so the Wonder Woman glass got put into the rotation.

Maggie was utterly fascinated by the glass. Staring intently at the tiny-waisted character, questioning her place in our home. I really didn’t have any answers, except for the general answers of maybe Wonder Woman being somebody that “takes care of business”, “saves people” or “wants to find the good in the world”  and then I shared the story of where the glass came from and my childhood set of underwear. And then all of us girls are probably like Wonder Woman…..because we like to do those things too…..especially in our underwear.