THREE

So OBVIOUSLY this post is a million months overdue.  But I still feel the need to go on and publish it.  I wrote most of it when she actually turned three but I've added a few little things. It is really amazing how much she has changed just in the 2 and a half months since then.  A lot has happened but I want this in the book I print at the end of the year so here goes....


It is really hard to believe that my girl is three.  Although I have been feeling like she was three for a while because she's been counting down the days.  Each morning she will ask me, "How many days until my birthday party? How many days until my birthday?"  It's kind of a big deal to be three.  

This girl is sweet, smart, silly and oh so sassy.

The sweet:  She loves to say I love you and she loves to snuggle.  Most of the time in the evening she will ask me if it is time to snuggle in the big comfy chair yet.  If she is feeling bad she will ask me to come snuggle up with her.  She loves her big girl bed because Mommy and Daddy can snuggle in there with her.  She still tells me that that she "missed me sooooooooo much while I was in Denver".  

The smart:  She has an amazing memory and doesn't forget a thing.  I know she is mostly memorizing things but she amazes me at how fast she learns.  Just the other day I decided she needed to learn the sounds each letter makes (this came to me while we were driving in the car for some reason so I just went with it).  We started off with  a few easy ones...D, F and T.  I said F sounds like "fffff".  She piped right up and said, "like fish!"  Then she proceeded to spout off 5 or 6 words that started with F.  So far she really likes to learn and I hope that continues.  (We are hitting a stage now where she doesn't want to answer questions when we do learning time.  She will answer with an obvious wrong answer and just smile and say that she is being silly.  AH!)

The silly:  Oh lord.  One of her favorite things to say is "That's so silly!" or "You silly goose!".    Daddy taught her about wet willie's (thanks so much) and she will sneak up on us all the time.  She also loves to try and tickle us when we aren't expecting it.  Oh the giggles!  She likes to tell us elaborate stories that she thinks are totally hilarious.  I usually pick up on about half of what is going on in her little story but it always starts with "Once upon a time".  Ha!  Anytime I make her do something that she doesn't really want to do but does anyway she says "This is so ridic-uh-lus".  I had no idea where she got that and it makes me laugh every time because she says it with a big sigh.  Then the other day I found myself muttering, "this is so ridiculous" while cleaning up ALL THE THINGS IN THE HOUSE.  So I guess she comes by it naturally ;)

t-shirt creds to my lovely Bridget :)

The sassy:  Whew...the sassiness can drive me crazy sometimes.  I keep reminding myself that this is just a stage and she is learning her boundaries.  If I ask her to do something she will look at me and say "NO.  I am not going to do that.  I am going to keep playing."  I am learning to have more patience because that seems to work better than me getting frustrated. 

This is generally the look I get when I want to take her picture.  She thinks she's like 14 or something....

She is all of these things but if I had to pick out one word to describe her (which would be hard) it would be independent.  She wants/demands to do everything herself.  I generally try to let her do most things but there are just some things that she can't do.  Like, no, you can't use the scissors to cut the tag off your shirt without my help.  No, you can't take dinner out of the oven even if you do use the oven mitts.  People tell me all the time how independent she is and I guess I didn't really realize that not all 3 year olds are this way.  She gets frustrated if I try to help her do things (brush her teeth) so I really try to let her be but sometimes we are on a time crunch, ya know??  Someone told me the other day that the qualities that make a productive adult are the same qualities that make a difficult toddler.  When it comes to the independence thing...I totally agree!  

The number one thing she wants to do right now is play babies.  I hear 400 times a day, "want to play babies with me?".  She has about 10 of them and she feeds them, diapers them, bathes them and puts them down for naps.  They even get timeouts!  The one day a week that Juanet keeps her she also keeps her new granddaughter who is about 5 months old.  Blakely LOVES this.  She "helps" Juanet do everything with AK.  I think when AK started coming with Juanet is when the playing babies went into overdrive.  When she comes home from there she tells me all about AK crying or pooping or laughing.  So adorable and I can't wait for us to tell her we are going to be having a baby in our house!  (Obviously we've done this now and she talks a lot about picking the babies up if they cry and helping to change their diapers.)

She also loves tea parties, pretending to cook elaborate meals in her kitchen, reading her High Fi.ve magazine, playing chase, riding in the car with the windows down and doing crafts ("tafts").  I would love to get her an art table or something because she loves painting, coloring and drawing, gluing and cutting.  Maybe for Christmas!  

She knows all of our close family members full names.  When Lonnie tries to get my attention by saying Kelly she will laugh and say my full name.  She asks me all the time what someone's name is.  Then she will want to know their middle and last name.  Usually I don't know so I will make something up or tell her to make something up.  

A few stats for my girl at 3 years old.  She is 34 pounds and 39 1/2 inches tall.  She is very coordinated and I wonder if she will enjoy playing sports.  Right now she is in gymnastics and dance class.  I am hoping in the spring she can start tee ball because she really loves playing that at our house.  My girl is growing up so fast!  I can't believe we are already thinking about sports and stuff.  Crazy.  

Is this over yet??

A couple of random things she has said recently that made me laugh.  

We went to the accountant's office and as I was getting her out of the car I mumbled something to myself about being in the ghetto (seriously, always makes me nervous going there).   She started saying (really loudly) "What is a ghetto, Mommy?"  "Why are we in the ghetto?"  I was trying to shush her and she finally yelled, "Don't shush me!  Tell me what a ghetto is!".  I wanted to melt because there were people all around.  

GranDi and Jenni were talking to her about their recent trip to the beach.  Blakely loves talking about all things beach related.  Anyway, they told her that Grandmama ate flounder for dinner one night.  Blakely got big eyes and said, "Danna mama ate Flounder?".  She was about to cry when they realized she thought Grand ate Flounder from The Lit.tle Merm.aid.  They quickly changed and said oh no!  It wasn't flounder it was grouper!  Tears began to fall as Blakely said, "Danna mama ate Mr. Grouper?"  They were so confused and she told them Mr. Grouper was from Bu.bble Gu.ppies.  Finally they just said she ate fish.  LOL!  

Every time we leave the house and we get out of the subdivision she asks me if I forgot something.  It's funny because I usually do so she knows to ask me before we get too far from home.  

She has so many nicknames and we rarely call her Blakely.  Turkey, Turkey Lurkey, Turkey Noodle, Turkey Booger (I don't know how turkey got started but whatever), B, Boo, Bug, Buggy, B-girl, Boppy, Bop, B-bop just to name a few.  

I love being this girls Mommy.  She is perfect!  

I did a little survey like this a while ago and thought it was really fun.  Then I saw Shannon do it for Taylor on her third birthday so I am going for it and hope to continue it every year.  I put my comments in blue.    ;)  

Blakely: 3 years old

How old are you?  3
Favorite color?  Pink
Favorite toy?  Stickers
Favorite thing to play?  Babies
Favorite thing to do outside?  Blow bubbles
Favorite animal?  Cows
Favorite TV show?  Mickey
Favorite movie?  Ariel  (The Little Mermaid)
Favorite song?  Twinkle Twinkle
Favorite book?  Amos with the Animals  (A Sick Day for Amos McGee)
Favorite game?  Airplane one on the iPad
Favorite restaurant?  Greg's  (Our weekend breakfast haunt)
Favorite thing to eat for breakfast?  Cinnamon toast
Favorite lunch?  Oranges
Favorite dinner?  Carrots
Favorite snack?  Cereal  (We never have cereal so not sure where this came from!)
Favorite drink?  Milk
Favorite treat?  Skittles
Favorite flavor of ice cream?  Chocolate 
Who is your best friend?  Collier and Syble
Favorite place to go?  School
Favorite holiday?  in October  (I'm assuming she means her birthday...)
Favorite sport?  Basketball
Favorite pair of shoes?  Tennis shoes  (She never wants to wear them so I have no idea why she said these)
Favorite thing to do with Mommy?  Play bandaids
Favorite thing to do with Daddy?  Play babies
What makes you happy?  Hugs
What are your really good at?  Pedaling bikes
What do you wish for?  to watch a movie
What makes you sad?  Boo boo's
What is your favorite memory?  the babies at school (???)
Dislikes?  hot dogs  (loves them so I'm confused)
What do you want to be when you grow up?  Syble and Collier

First dance performance

The day after we got back from Alabama, Blakely had her very first dance performance!  

The big recital isn't until May but they do a little Christmas program at the mall and....holy cuteness.    

I wasn't really sure what to expect as it was 2-5 year olds performing.  Blakely also wouldn't show me any of the dances so I had no idea if she would follow along or not.  We got to watch her very last practice for a few minutes and she just kept running over to give me a hug every 10 seconds in the middle of the dance!  Ha!  So I knew I may have to hide in the crowd at the mall.  

I completely forgot they needed to wear Santa hats until the night before so I had to make a frantic run to Tar.get in Alabama to find one.  I got a youth and it was almost too small.  She ended up taking it off for the last couple of dances.  

Mrs. Patty is her teacher and she has a few other teenage girls that help her.  They were all standing up in front of the group of girls and doing the dance with them so the littles could follow along.  

It was early...and they did a dance with her soft bear.  Legit yawn ;)

Blakely did really well.  Much better than I thought.  It took her a minute to start her dancing but then she followed the leaders pretty good.  Lots of marching and twirling.  This made me excited for the recital.  It was the cutest chaos ever.  Some girls were crying at first but once it got started all the girls really paid attention much better than I expected.  During the recital each age group performs together so there won't be this many kids at once.  Only about 8-10 at a time.  The theme of the recital is Sweet 16 (candy theme) and I already have her costume.  OMG...cute!  

Not sure what she is doing here.  Ha!

I recorded the first few dances but then my video camera ran out of memory so I just took pictures.  The sound quality was crud there but you get the idea.  This was about the 3rd dance out of 6.  I hope you can see her...she sees me about halfway through.  She's on the second row and kinda covered up by the girl in front of her for the first part.  

The video isn't as grainy if you watch it on yo.utu.be!   

So far I am liking the dance class.  I was unsure at first but she seems to love it so we will keep on this year.  I can't tell if she loves it because of the dancing or because she likes playing with the girls in her class!  Either way!  

road trip...

I have so many posts in draft that need to be published!  Determined to do that before the new year!  We have ben super busy!  

The first of December, on sort of a whim, we took a little road trip to Alabama.  Actually it wasn't little...it was looooong but I am so glad that we did it.  

My brother has been living there for the last 6 months and we haven't seen him.  He is not able to come home for Christmas so my mom and I were talking about mailing him his gifts. Then she mentioned that she had a week of vacation that needed to be used before the end of January.  One thing led to another and we decided to drive down and have a little Christmas with him!

Never passes up and opportunity to help someone open a present.  

Sooooo me, Blakely and my mom loaded up the van that my dad let me borrow and off we went on a 9 hour road trip.  Blakely does really well in the car but no one can be excited about a long car ride with a toddler.  I packed a bag of goodies for her but didn't have to pull a single thing out on the way down there (the way home was a different story).  

The ride was not fun.  We had to stop an hour from home so I could run in the doctor's office and get my lab drawn.  Usually this takes 5 minutes but this time it took an hour.  So it seemed like we had been on the road for 3 hours and we were only an hour from home.  Slow start to the day.  It took us about 10 hours to get there and we went straight to pick up Matt and then back to our hotel.  I was WORN OUT and STARVING.  I could not get to food fast enough.  

A little back story on my brother.  I'll save you the gory details but I do need to explain a little just for understanding the importance of the trip.  He has struggled with addiction for a long time.  It has been very difficult.  He has been trying to get sober for about a year and a half.  He went (back) to rehab almost 6 months ago and is now living in a sober living facility.  He has been doing well and seems to be taking all of this very seriously (as he should).  I am very happy for him and proud of him although always cautious.  I have been through this before!  My father is an alcoholic (sober 11 years) and I've lived with my brother battling addiction for many years.  I know alllllll about addiction...unfortunately.  

ANYWAY!  To me and my mom it was a big step for my brother to realize that he didn't need to come home for Thanksgiving or Christmas (this town is toxic for him).  Hence, the reason we decided to go see him.  And we haven't seen him in 6 months and we wanted to encourage him.  

Also, Blakely.  He loves Blakely.  She makes him want to be better.  To do better.  I knew that if he spent some time with her it would do him a lot of good.  And it did.  It was wonderful.  

Do you think they look alike?  

We first thought that he was only going to get to hang out with us during the day and then we would take him back at night but his counselors let him spend the night with us as long as he checked in with them in during the day.  It was great!  My mom and I had gotten adjoining hotel rooms so we spent a lot of time playing games there and, of course, playing babies with Blakely.  

We went out for meals and then one day we spent roaming around the Au.burn campus.  It was a great trip and I am so happy we went.  Blakely had a fun time and keeps talking about the next time we can see Uncle Matty.

The trip was so so worth it.  I keep thinking back on it and I am so glad that we decided to do it.  My mom was worried that it would make him want to come home but I actually think it confirmed for him that he needed to stay there.  He knows that he needs to continue to keep working on himself and he can only do that there.  

I couldn't be happier that he is working the program and focused on staying sober.  I am used to worrying about him like crazy so it is niiiiiice to know that he is safe there and doing well.  Please let it just stay that way!  

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my blog friends!  

Blakely has only asked Santa for babies and diapers.  And I mean that is absolutely the only thing she has asked for...every.single.time someone asks for the past month.  Until this morning when I told her that Santa was coming tonight and she said, "Oh goody!  He's going to bring me a unicorn, Mommy!  I'm so excited!  I love unicorns!"  What in the world?  You can't change it up on Christmas Eve!  And there is no way I am getting out today.  We will see what kind of magic Santa can come up with :)   I hope you all have a great holiday!