She's Three!

My girl turned three on Sunday, and boy did we celebrate. When I say 'celebrate', I mainly mean eating our favorite foods while wearing fun hats. And oh yeah...opening LOTS of great gifts! Yammy and Poppa and Uncle Monkey flew in so we also had some great days with them at the beach, pumpkin patch and preschool. My Dad was the official photographer of our weekend and I haven't seen his pics yet, so these are mine and are not the best photos, but you'll get the idea:

Yammy and Poppa went to preschool with Millie on Thursday. She celebrated her birthday with her class by picking out this book and donating it to her classroom.

Birthday lunch at In N Out!

Millie opened her gifts from Gamma & Gampa Greer while chatting with them on Skype.

Gamma Greer made this AMAZING quilt for Mils. It's the Hungry Caterpillar! She loved it instantly and set up a bed right there in the middle of the floor. She has slept with it every nap & night.

Rockin Out.

If Millie didn't love this gift so much, I might consider some serious retribution for my little brother. Who else but a crazy Uncle would buy a toy that 1) lights up; 2) plays piercing music at high volume; and 3) has a bonus electric guitar feature that puts out some screeching, deafening noise when her fingers hit the strings? Oooohhh, I'll get you Matty.

She's so excited right now because out on the sidewalk, just behind her birthday crown, is her new BIG GIRL BIKE! It's the real thing, a two-wheeler with training wheels! Boy is she proud to ride it around the neighborhood. My girl has never looked so grown up as when she pedaled away from me on that bike. Knocked the air right out of me.

"Hi...Welcome to CiCi's" Perhaps I should be embarrassed that we went to an all you can eat pizza buffet for my daughter's birthday, but it really was the perfect end to a busy day/weekend.

What was NOT a perfect end to the day was when our otherwise angelic dog Casey jumped up on the kitchen counter to knock Millie's birthday cake to the floor. AND THEN SHE ATE IT! I'm not even kidding. She devoured nearly the whole thing while we were putting the kids to bed. I cried just a bit because not only had this cake taken me all afternoon to bake (a butterscotch layer cake with caramel cream cheese frosting) but NONE of the adults had tried it. Thankfully, we sang and gave Millie a slice before Casey got to it, which is the most important part, of course. Casey and I weren't on speaking terms for a few days. Oh well.

Millie is just blowing my mind these days. She is incredibly friendly and gregarious (has lots of her dad in her). She will introduce herself to anyone, respond perfectly to adults who start conversations with her, and sit down and play with kids of all ages. She lights up when she sees her friends from preschool or the park and just slides right up beside them to say hello. Millie is SILLY. I mean, you've seen the outfits she puts together for dancing. She makes up games to play with Simon (which have involved a lot of scotch tape lately, much to Simon's dismay) and just harasses Casey with her love. She's got this crazy vocabulary that she busts out on us all the time (her favorite big words: Actually, Dangerous, Exhilarating, Available). She's a great rule follower and and excellent rule-stretcher/negotiator. She doesn't seem to have much brattiness in her thus far, which I am so thankful for. I love spending my days with this little personality. She keeps me laughing, makes me proud, and really just takes my breath away.