She's 3!

It's hard to believe that Natalie is the ripe old age of three...and yet, she has seemed older than her little age for so long, that I can't believe she is just turning three!

What a day. We celebrated the Saturday before with a Tinkerbell party (stay tuned for post and pictures), so the 27th was relatively calm. In fact, that morning as we were making a big deal of her birthday, Natalie asked, "Why do I have so many birthdays, mom?"

Andrew, James and I woke Natalie with a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday." We had a streamer curtain for her to go through at the bottom of the stairs. Good thing she got through it before James, because it was gone within 10 seconds of James getting his hands on it.

Pancakes for breakfast...Natalie and me with blueberries, Andrew without. "A" for Andrew, "N" for Natalie, attempt at birthday "balloons" for both. James just ate what I put on his tray. The highlight may have been the red "you are special plate" that Natalie insisted on using for breakfast AND lunch. She loved it.

We went to the library in the morning, she played at a friend's house in the afternoon, we went to the gym, and then John came home "early" from work. He would have made it even earlier if somebody had not been having a baby on the freeway (please do not let that be me in 5 months!)
I let Natalie pick out her clothes--she chose her Belle dress for the morning, her Diamond Castle dress for the afternoon, and the cute outfit from grandma for the evening (hard to climb around in a dress-up).

Natalie opened her presents and then we went to Chick-FilA for dinner--the draw being the indoor playground. It was perfect. I didn't make another cake--we had that on Saturday, so we settled for some ice cream and another round of "Happy Birthday."

And throughout the day, she had several calls from cousins and grandparents. Thank you, thank you for your calls! She just lit up every time she got on the phone.
It was a great day to celebrate a wonderful girl.

A few things you should know about Natalie:

1. She loves beautiful things. Right now specifically that includes make-up, nail polish, jewelry, and dress-ups.

2. She is sweet. She tells me all day long, "Mom, I love you." If I seem frazzled she says, "Mom, I love you." She has even pulled a "you look beautiful, mom" out of the bag. As she and Andrew are playing together I have overheard her several times say out of the blue, "Andrew, I love you."
3. She is fun and likes to laugh.
4. She has a munchkin voice. Oh, I hope we have captured this adequately in our home movie library. People hear her speak and do a double-take because her voice is just too cute.
5. She is very coordinated.
6. She loves friends.
7. She flirts with older boys. It is funny, but maybe a little worrisome to. If there are older boys around, she is giggling, talking to them, and batting her eyes.
8. She wants to do everything that Andrew does. She told me that we were having a birthday party and at first said it was going to be a train party, "like Andrew's"

9. She is extremely determined (a fancy way of saying stubborn). Although this is a difficult quality as her mom sometimes, I am positive it will serve her well in the future...right?
10. If you ask her what her name is, she says, Natalie Darraine Gahneh (Her middle name is Larraine after my mom). She loves that she and Gramma "Darraine" have the same name.
11. She will do just about anything for candy.
12. Can you say drama queen?
13. She has about the cutest "shoor" (sure) you have ever heard.