Lily's 3rd Birthday!

Today my baby girl turned 3!! Honestly, I have no idea how that happened or where the time went. I know I said this last year, but it still holds true today -- as much as I can't believe she is already 3, at the same time I can't believe she is only 3 since I can not recall what life was like without her. We are so lucky to have our Lily. She is such a sweet, smart and wonderful little lady. I love her so much!!!

We started her day off by letting her open 2 of her presents.

She got an Ariel.

And a Snow White dress with matching shoes!

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Luckily her birthday fell on a Monday this year, so it was also Chip's day off work! We had considered going to the Children's Museum at the Natural Science Museum in Dallas, but there is so much to see and do, I was afraid it would be too much and she wouldn't get a good nap and would be cranky for her mini party tonight with Grandma & Grandpa. She wanted to go to the park, but it was 33 degrees today!! So we decided to go to Chuck E Cheese for lunch!

Of course she wanted to wear her Snow White dress.

Getting her photo drawn.

I LOVE this photo!

She actually ate her pizza!

And while we were eating, she got an extra surprise when Patti and Emily showed up to play!

(I had told Patti we were going, but wasn't sure if they were going to come by)

She looks way to sad to be a birthday girl at Chuck E Cheese!

Playing the basket ball game.Lily and Emily
Skee Ball -- my favorite!

Shooting games with Daddy

After Chuck E Cheese we had to make a quick stop at Market Street to buy M&M Cookies to bring to school tomorrow for Lily's special birthday snack.

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My parents came over at 5:30 and Lily was so worn out from her fun morning, that I had to wake her from her nap! We let her open a few more presents before we went to dinner.

My Aunt Karen and Uncle Bob sent her a WebKinz kitty who she LOVES and named Lumpy after the hufalump on "My Friends Tigger and Pooh". She even brought him to dinner with us!

Dinner at BJs.

Lily loves to "eat at restaurants" so we took her out to dinner.

Back home for more presents.

Just a few more . . . .:)

A Snow White doll from Aunt Linda, Uncle Scott and Jeremy (and Murphy -- that is what she said when she opened it! Can't forget Murphy!) :)

Belle!

Opening the big one from Grandma and Grandpa. . .

A Doll House!

Woody!

Cinderella play set

Play Doh Burger Maker

Princess Books

Tinkerbell dress!

She also got Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Ariel and Belle. Now she is all ready to play dress up.

Yummy cake time!

Make a wish!

Happy Birthday Lily!!!!!

Disney Live!

Tonight we took Lily to see the "Disney Live Rockin' Road Show" at the American Airlines center as part of her birthday celebration. After the amazing time we had at the Sesame Street Live show last year, I was so excited to go take her to the Disney show. Plus, as an extra bonus her friends Emily and Hannah (and Patti/Bryan & Lori/Matt) came too!

Lily with Emily in the background eating a hot dog. The dress Lily is wearing was supposed to be Emily's. Patti bought it for Emily, but the fur on the neck bugged Emily and she refused to wear it, so Patti gave it to us. It was perfect to wear tonight since it has Sleeping Beauty, Belle and Cinderella on it!

Sharing popcorn with Daddy while we were waiting for the show to start.

Lily was a little mesmerized and shocked when the show first started . . .

(Lily and Emily)

. . . but it didn't take her long to start laughing, waving and clapping.

She had her arm around Emily! How cute is that?

Waving hi.

She waved at everyone the whole time.

Clapping. She clapped a lot too!

She was a little concerned since there was no Daisy or Pluto. It is a little strange.

Hi Mickey!

Trying to get a photo with her during intermission. She wasn't really into it.

The story of the show was as follows: Mickey and gang travel around the world to find the best performers for their talent show. The first half was them traveling and finding acts and the second half was the actual talent show. They found Cinderella, Woody, Jessie and Buzz and Tigger to perform.

Woody

Fairy Godmother and Cinderella

Tigger!

Waiting for her friends to stand and pose with her.

Lily and Hannah

Hannah and Lily actually danced and watched a lot of the show together. I just didn't get any good pictures with Hannah since she sat right next to us and they were too close to me. The aisles were super cramped, so it was really hard to get a good picture of them dancing when they were right in front of me. The three girls squeeze by us throughout the show to see each other and dance or bounce (when Tigger was on). It was fun and sweet.

Not sure what Lily is doing here.

Lily, Emily and Hannah

Since Emily and Hannah got souvenirs, we let Lily pick out a toy too. She got a Cinderella doll which was actually cheaper than parking and the sno cones they were selling! :)

It was a super fun night. I spend more time watching Lily than watching the show and it was great, she had so much fun!!

Birthday Cake!

This morning Lily and I had more work to do around the house. I started the day off by taking down the Christmas lights, while Lily mowed the lawn:

(and the driveway)

Then we baked the cake for Lily's birthday tomorrow. Since our plans for tomorrow are not set yet and we have plans this evening, I took advantage of the spare hour I had to get her cake made.

As usual, she was a big help.

Here she is softening the butter. See it in her hand, I just had her hold it for a bit and it was ready to go!

We have matching rubber scrapers -- mine is big and hers is tiny. I didn't even plan that out, I had bought them years ago in the Target dollar spot.

Lily has NEVER wanted to lick the batter or taste the dough when we bake. For me that is the best part of baking, but Lily always refuses. Finally today, she got brave and took a tiny lick from her spatula . . .

and then asked for the beater . . .

and then demanded the bowl to scrape!!

I totally created a monster!

She was loving it. It was SO cute.

It was a little bittersweet for me. I really enjoyed sharing the wonder of cake batter with her, but now I am bummed since I'll always have to share with her. :)

The finished product.

She wanted a yellow cake with pink icing. Thankfully such a thing exists and is easy to make! :) I applied the frosting while she was sleeping and when she woke up she was all sad since it was not her yellow cake! Apparently she forgot she also asked for pink icing.

2010, So Far . . .

New Year's Day started like any other -- with the Rose Parade. Chip had to work all day and I was looking forward to watching the parade with Lily, but she did not want to watch with me. All she wanted to do was dance to Pearl Jam. So we had the oddest argument ever with her yelling, "I want Pearl Jam" and me responding, "No, I want the parade!". I won and watched the parade with a huffy and annoyed little Pearl Jam fan, and after it was over we got to dance. The rest of the day was busy -- I cleaned up some, worked for 3 hours, had to cut out huge snowflakes for Lily's class (room parent duties) and after Lily went to sleep Chip and I wrapped all her birthday presents. Typing it up, it doesn't appear to be that busy, but it really really was! Saturday we went to my Mom's in the morning, came home and cleaned up, I worked, cleaned some more (the house was kinda a disaster after the holidays!), did laundry and finally got to relax a little. So basically -- there hasn't been anything exciting going on here, but I feel that I have been very productive so far in 2010, hopefully I can keep that up! I have a lot to do this week to get ready for Lily's birthday party next weekend and then we are going to California for a week. I am tired just thinking about it! :)

Checking out Eddie Vedder through her binoculars.

So happy that she finally got to dance!

New Year's Eve

Yesterday Lily and I took down all the Christmas decorations. We had taken the tree down the night before when Chip was home. Normally I like to leave them all up as long as possible, but it was so cluttered in here and the tree was so dead that I was actually itching to get it all down. Plus, since Lily's been born I've been getting it down earlier since I am out of Christmas mode and into birthday mode now! But it was a great holiday and I have only two regrets -- one, that I never got a photo of Lily and Santa. She was way too terrified this year and it was obvious that it wasn't going to happen without some major trauma for her and that would not be good. And two, that I didn't get a video of her singing Christmas songs. Thanks to the singing Elmo stocking and the Chipmunks Christmas CD I bought, she learned a lot of Christmas songs. Her favorites were "Up On The Housetop," "Deck the Halls," "Jingle Bells," "Frosty the Snowman," and "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer." She'll also sing "The Christmas Song" by The Chipmunks. She is pretty good and learned them all so fast! It was so cute listening to her sing songs all season long -- I loved it!!!

All the Christmas decorations gathered and ready to be boxed up until next year.
Saying goodbye to the Elmo stocking. She did not want me to pack him up, but after playing with him all morning and saying our goodbyes she was okay with it, so we took a last picture before putting him in the box.

After all the cleaning was done we had to bake brownie cookie bars for New Year's Eve.

Then my wonderful angel demanded (I swear!) that I put Pearl Jam on so she can dance.

Crazy moves!!

Dancing with Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.
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After that busy morning (and 2 hours of work while Lily napped), Lily, Chip and I went to Patti, Bryan and Emily's house to celebrate New Year's Eve!

Lily with her New Year's tiara eating her cupcake.

With a horn noise maker.

Lily and Emily with their horns.

They had set up camp in Patti's bedroom to watch Aladdin and Cinderella.

We weren't sure if we were going to actually stay until midnight since we didn't know how Lily and Emily would do that late. Emily was going strong, but a little after 11pm Lily was done and actually asked to go home and to bed!!! The cool part was that in Texas, with the Central time zone, all the TV is live with the East Coast feed. So we actually watch the ball drop live in NY at 11pm and then watch the Dallas celebration from 11-12. So we got to watch the ball drop at their house and count down with the girls. By the time we got home and Lily in her PJ's with her teeth brushed and a potty stop, it was 11:55, so Chip and I tucked her in real fast and got to watch the countdown and fireworks on TV. Of course in typical Lily fashion, she went potty in her diaper and I had to go back in and change her (she is still only going poo at bedtime), so techincally she did stay up for the New Year and I got my New Year's kiss from by baby right after midnight! :)

** As a side note we started 2010 off great too -- she slept in until 9:30 (which means I got to sleep in too!!)