A Very Merry Birthday

 Well. I wanted to make sure we'd mark this third birthday with some good fun things. I organized a playdate while Nathan would be at school. And the next day was Levi's day off, so we'd have some time for a day-after birthday outing. Hooray! Fun things!

And then, sickness. Levi was home sick. Clara had a cough. Alice was all sorts of snotty and had a little cough. So we canceled the playdate and hunkered in.

 But was our birthday fun? You bet. The thing about three is that simple things are really fun. During the afternoon we got out some balloons. Balloons are fun by nature, and then when you learn about static electricity, the fun multiplies! Look! the balloon is sticking to me! To the couch! To the wall!

 Then we got out the birthday crepe paper to decorate. She was pretty proud of this one--she did it all herself.  After that we watched a movie and painted fingernails. For dinner we loaded all the sickies in the car for Chick Fil A drive-through--her choice. And then, birthday party!

 Clara wanted a pink princess birthday cake. But, this is a girl who doesn't eat cake, so why bother? So she got a pink princess ice cream cake. It turned out pretty well, and she loved it.

 It took a while to blow out candles--by the end, Nathan was helping.

And Alice was pretty happy with an ice cream cone filled with whipped cream. She did successfully beg a few bites of ice cream later. I've gotten a lot more relaxed about things like that with each baby.

And although our day didn't live up to my plans, it was probably better. A fun day at home doing all the things Clara loves best. What a happy girl, at least most of the time.

And, the day after her birthday, she started (finally) telling me when it's time to go potty. We're definitely making progress now. Hopefully we'll have less of turning "back into a baby" from here on out. Clara told Grandma a couple weeks ago that most of the time she's a big girl but sometimes she turns back into a baby--this while grandma was dealing with a dirty pull-up. Yes, let's have less of that.