Guess Who's 3 1/2 Years Old Today!

Our sweet baby girl

is growing up right in front of our eyes.

 I cannot believe she is already 3 1/2!

She continues to amaze us very day. She makes us so incredibly proud to be her Mommy and Daddy. She sometimes catches me looking at her...with tears in my eyes. She gets a little concerned and will ask me, "Mommy, what's wrong? Are you okay?" My response is usually something to the effect of, "I'm fine, Sweetheart. I just love you so much. So very much. You make me very proud. I just want you to know that." She smiles at me and gives me a hug. Yes, my heart melts just a little bit more...

She gives us so many reasons to be proud. Such a beautiful, smart, funny little one. I love her sweetness, compassion, thoughtfulness, and love for her doggy and babies. I love her discovery of new words..."Mommy, what is that word you said? What does it mean?" I love her problem-solving skills. I love how she just wants to learn, learn, learn..."Mommy, I have a question for you..." (Oh, boy!)

 I love that she loves her ABCs, words, numbers, books, games, puzzles,  music, dancing, singing, swimming, basketball, soccer,  hula hoops, jump ropes, babies, animals, baking, helping Mommy (most of the time), Mickey Mouse and Special Agent Oso! She really liked shoe shopping last week! Oh, yeah! I love how much she talks about and loves her "flamily"! She can't wait for her daddy to come home from work. She loves when she gets to go to daddy's work  near the end of the day so mommy can run errands. When we go out to lunch or dinner, she saves a few bites for Sheena. She wraps them in a napkin, brings them home, hugs Sheena and tells her how much she missed her! My heart melts when I come home after a  few hours of "Mommy-time" and she runs to me exclaiming, "Mommy, you're home! I missed you!" Last night was one of those nights. The best part was that she needed a little one on one time with Mommy at bedtime. Holding her, rocking her, singing to her, chatting with her, and just gazing down into her big brown eyes...priceless. And I love the greeting I get after working out. I go in to the Kids Klub to get her and usually hear, "Hi! My Mommy's here! Mommy, did you work out?" I love the "leg hug" that accompanies her words... 

I love that she strives every day to be such a "big girl" who does so much "all by Rachel's self" or "all by myself" as she has started saying. She is quite the little "self-corrector". It is interesting to hear her expand upon her sentences and correct her own pronouns etc...We did have quite the little "word debate" last Friday on the way home from open gym. She kept telling me she "runned and runned all over the place". I know that is normal language development and she was, in fact, doing a good job of using past tense since she had already done it. After hearing it over and over, I could not stop myself. I told her the past tense of run is ran...or she could say "I was running all over the place". Nope! She disagreed. She "runned and runned"! I gave a few more examples and she did agree that she "was running all over the place at the gymnastics gym".

I also love that even though she is a "big girl" she still says to me..."Will you be there, Mommy?" "Will you help me?" "Will you do it with me, Mommy?" Absolutely! There's no place I'd rather be...I'll be happy to help you...there is nothing I'd rather be doing...

I have so much to share about from our Disneyland trip, but I could not resist a little "what we love about our sweet girl" post on this day of turning 3 1/2. These pictures are a few from her photo session at Sears today. We finally got in for a few more Cinderella pics (I found a gorgeous matching hairbow prior to our Disney trip as I did not think that the tiara would be comfortable for the lunch with the princesses in 90 degree weather), new Minnie Mouse outfit pics and some fun bathing suit pics. She was great! Afterwards we had a nice family dinner at The Outback. Tomorrow starts another busy week...gym, Kids Klub, music class, swim class, dance class, and open gym at the gymnastics place. She starts back with her gymnastics class in October again. I wanted her to have several weeks of just playing, running, jumping etc...during open gym time before we start back up with more structured classes.