Finley is 3!

Finley was super excited about her birthday this year - and Will asking every day if it was her birthday yet helped build the anticipation.  I need to lower my expectations of my abilities to make fancy cakes - of this I am reminded every year.  I tried ladybugs, so hopefully the pictures are recognizable.

A few things we love about Finley:  all her funny faces...

how much she loves her brothers, and singing her favorite song, "Away in a Manger".

We love talking to her - even when she comes in at the crack of dawn and drags us out of bed with not so friendly cries of "Wake up!  Right now!"  because, "I want foof".  She loves to see the "moom", and wants to check out her bedroom window every night.  She still loves reading books, and some of her favorites are Amelia Bedelia, the Pigeon books and "I Love You Forever".

She loves all her babies - but her attachment to my old Cabbage Patch doll ended when she got a new baby from Grandma Moffett for Christmas - it has a bottle, and a binki and when you put it in her mouth, she cries and laughs a little.  Finley thinks it is awesome.

We did two rounds of candles, and the second round was almost a disaster - turns out they were those candles that don't go out no matter how much you blow on them, and I finally pulled them out (after I thought they were extinguished) and set them on Will's plate.  But then they re-lit themselves and almost started the plate on fire!

Will was super excited to help her open her presents - and she was nice and let him.  As she is looking at these pictures with me, she is using one of her favorite phrases, "What in the world?", as she sees Will opening her presents with her.

Both kids loved the Disney princess dolls that you can dress and re-dress with each other's gowns.  I left out the picture of Will doing it - I thought in future years he might not appreciate the photographic evidence of that:)  If you look carefully, you may notice the wrapping paper, courtesy of ToysRUs.  We stopped in there to see if they had wrapping paper, but only found the princess plates and cups.  However, the cashier was nice enough to offer some of their wrapping paper for me to take.  Then while I was grabbing a few sheets, the other cashier asked what I was doing, and wanted to make sure I wasn't going to wrap up my stuff at home and try to return it as a gift and get money back.  Some people are so sneaky!

She loves this bed and high chair combo for her babies - but it almost wasn't to be.  It's not the highest quality and required complete assembly - Nate was "this close" to throwing it back in the box and angrily returning it.  But he made one little turn around and then it all came together - thank goodness because explaining that to the birthday girl would not have been fun!  Like the Christmas stroller, it has also made several trips up and down the stairs at night and in the morning.

                             Now Finley wants every day to be her birthday - who doesn't?  Three year old stats courtesy of a trip to the doctor, 36.6 inches tall, and 27.3 pounds.