Melanie's 3-Year Studio Pictures

We had Melanie's pictures taken for her 3rd birthday this morning.  She is definitely getting very comfortable with Stephanie at Penney's.  She was downright goofy for some of the pictures, and when Stephanie called her a silly monkey Melanie gave her a very disapproving face and said "No, I a big girl!" (I made a similar mistake a few days ago, so it made me laugh to see her do the same thing to someone else).  See if you can figure out which picture captured that moment.  Go here and enter my name for the customer.  Let me know what you think!

Melanie's 3rd Birthday

Today was the big day.  Our Little Miss Melanie turned three.  I don't know why, but that just seems so much bigger than two to me.  I'm not entirely sure I'm ready to have a three-year-old.  Regardless of if I'm ready for one or not, I've got one, and it seems she's growing more every single day.  Not size wise, mind you (just the other day she wore a pair of 12 month capris from last summer), but growing in all other aspects of life.

To celebrate the day we did the same thing we did for her first and second birthdays by having our families over for cake and ice cream.  I decorated a cake and made cookies, and Melanie wanted to get in on the decorating action.

I had made a few cupcakes with the extra cake batter, so Melanie got to put sprinkles on one, as well as some on the cake itself (which I later rearranged to make them more even distributed.  On the cake, not the cupcake.  I'm taking baby steps.)

Pretty happy with her cupcake

I plopped the extra buttercream frosting in a decorator bag, put on a tip and swirled it on the cupcakes.  It turned out much better than I had hoped for.

The cake and cookie pops

The rest of the cookies.

I ran out of royal icing and didn't feel like making another batch for four more cookies.  Matt prefers them plain anyway.

She really understood that today was her big day this year.  As soon as Matt mentioned it was time to open presents she was on top of it before you could blink your eyes.

She's quite ambitious as well.  

This box wasn't all that heavy (most of the contents had been taken out for assembly of the gift) but I was kinda surprised she even tried to pick it up.

Grams and Gramps gave her a trike and some books (the books were in the box for the trike).

She opened the box and got out the books, Grams brought the trike in from the front porch and Melanie promptly took her books over next to her trike to read them.  We tried to entice her to sit on her trike, to which she responded "I need to read I books first". While proper grammar is still a work in progress, I have no fear that with her love of books and reading that she will soon catch on.
It's a good thing this was the last gift she opened, because the party came to a stand still while she perused her newest reading materials.

She tried riding it for a little bit...

... but quickly got back to reading her books.  Radio Flyer's got nothing on Fancy Nancy!

(Claire's already working on how she's going to hitch a ride from her sister)

Melanie also got some money for her money jar.

She was much more excited about the coins than the bills since they make a satisfying "clink" in her jar.

Claire was excited when the jar was left unattended and she got to play with it for a bit.

The "adults" enjoying a game of Elefun

Melanie tried catching the butterflies for a little while, then realized it was easier to pick them up off the floor and put them in her net.  Smart kid.

 Blowing out the candle

That was some good cake!

After cake and ice cream Melanie wanted to try out the chef's set Grandma and Grandpa got for her.  

And what would a good chef do without some food to cook?

Great Grandpa Greenlee is definitely someone you want to invite to your birthday parties.  Ever since I was a kid he's always had his pocket knife with him to help unpackage all your new goodies that you just can't wait to play with, in this case some new play food.

Now she can carry her beloved food box around in style!

And finally, the scooter and helmet from dad, mom and Claire.  Don't ask me where she got the idea for this pose, but she was doing it all night long.  Silly kid!

Happy Birthday Miss Melanie!

Easter 2010

Easter was wonderful this year.  This was my first year since we've been married that I wasn't involved in RCIA up at church.  While I did miss being involved, it was nice to be able to totally focus on spending the time with family and not the usual rush of things that goes with Holy Week with RCIA.  We still attended Holy Thursday and Good Friday services, which were beautiful and full of meaning, as well as being a reminder of why we opt for 9:00am mass.  Evening mass in NOT a good idea for our girls.  9:00am is much better, mostly because they're still sleepy and are therefore content to just sit with us and not cause too much of a fuss.  I'm just going to say we had opportunity to earn some extra graces at Thursday and Friday's services and leave it at that.

Easter morning

Baskets and eggs waiting to be found by the girls

Coming down to see if there's anything in the baskets we set out the night before

Not too sure what she thinks of the situation

Checking out the goods.

Like all good little sisters, Claire was more interested in what was in Melanie's basket than what was in hers.

The eggs were a hit!

And yes, those are pom-poms in the basket instead of grass.  I bought the baskets on clearance last year and forgot to buy grass, which I didn't realize until Saturday and didn't want to send Matt out to get any.  I was planning on giving them the pom-poms anyway, so why not have them pull double duty? As an added  bonus there wasn't any annoying grass pieces laying all over the house afterwards.

I really like Claire's facial expression in this one.

"Gewwy beans!"

The first egg hunt of the day: finding the eggs the Easter Bunny left "hidden" around the living room.

Showing off one of the barrettes she got.

Claire found one!

Trying to eat some of dad's candy

Egg hoarder

Claire was not interested in posing for pictures before mass.

Melanie is much better trained in this area

This was the best shot we were able to get of both of them together.

The second egg hunt of the day: Grams and Gramps house

Every time Claire would try to get an egg Melanie's competitive spirit would flare up and she'd go in for the steal.  I'm trying to make sure Claire gets at least one egg.

Elizabeth's "Type A" personality in photos:

"Here Claire, the egg goes in the basket."

"I SAID it goes IN the BASKET!"

Oh whatever.  Let her play with it and be happy.

I'm still a work in progress.

Who needs a basket?

Unlike most kids, Claire likes to take eggs out of the basket instead of putting them in.

Egg hunt #3 : Home

Cousin Sara helping get an elusive egg.

Taking a break from hunting eggs for a bit of ball play

Check out my haul!

Taking a break for some jumping.  She's getting pretty brave with how high she'll go to jump.

And finally, the beautiful flowers my sister Laura brought from her garden so I could make a centerpiece.

We hope your family had a wonderful Easter full of relaxation, family and memories. We sure did!

Rejoice!  He is risen!