SarahMae's 3rd birthday!!

She's three years old! How did that happen so fast?! Before I jump in with pictures, I started a birthday questionnaire this year with her. I know I've seen lots of people do this, but I always forget, so I think I'm going to start it this year with both girls. It's in her own words, so it's pretty funny and sweet, too. :o)

1. What is your favorite color? Pink. And blue, black brown.
2. What is your favorite book? Where's My Teddy? ('Oh, no!' said Eddie. 'I'm scared already! I want my bed, I want my teddy!!' -- we don't know this book by heart or anything...)
3. What is your favorite TV show? Colors.  (Baby Einstein's Color World on Netflix)
4. What is your favorite movie? Cedarmont Kids Christmas. (She didn't actually say this, I inferred. Her actual response was to start dancing around the living room singing "Away in a Manger." 
5. What is your favorite baby doll? Tweet Tweet. Bee, too. (Yes, she has dolls named Tweet and Bee. At least she named them herself!)
6. What is your favorite food? Taco salad and eggs with cheese on it.
7. What is your favorite thing about Daddy? Sings me songs and reads me books.
8. What is your favorite thing about Shiloh? Plays with me and show me how to dance ballet.
9. What is your favorite thing about Mommy? Cuddles with me when I have a nightmare and says "I love you." (Aww!)
10. What do you think is scary? Storms and trucks. And bugs.
11. What do you want to be like when you grow up? Be big like Mommy and have brown hair.
12. What is your favorite thing to do at home? Dance around and play ponies.
13. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Twist on the swings.
14. Where do you like to go? The park, see my friends swing. Oh! Trader Joe's!! Trader Joe's and push the cart! I LOVE pushing the cart!! ....Shiloh's ballet, too.
15. What is your favorite animal? Butterflies.
16. What is your favorite song? King of the Jungle (Hoo-Hoo!)
17. What do you want to say? I want to dance with butterflies with my swim boot (suit) on in the water.
18. What is SarahMae good at? Dancing!!! (and proceeds to dance for the next ten minutes, humming as she goes.)

Also, some of her favorite sayings this past year:

• Wishus = Delicious
• Swim boot = Swimsuit
• Mucus = Music
• Magics class = Gymnastics class
• What the heck?!?! -- she gets this from Shiloh!
• Okay, bye.... -- imagine this from "Do You Want To Build A Snowman?" from the movie "Frozen," said in a sad toddler voice. She responds with this often when told she isn't allowed to do something.
• Riddie = Really. She says this when trying to be serious, but it's difficult to actually take her seriously when she says this.
• Wibby bit = Little bit. As in, "Mommy, cuddle me wibby bit?? Pweease?!"

Okay, on the pictures!

The night before SarahMae's birthday, we were invited to a benefit at Six Flags. The CEO of Rick's company paid for everyone to go to benefit the St. Louis Children's Hospital. We have actually never been as a family, and we didn't get many pictures, either! I was bummed that I forgot, but we were busy having fun. :o)

First, the yummiest ice cream EVER.

On the Ferris Wheel! She didn't freak out like I thought she would!

She could have stayed here all day, just running into the random fountain bursts.

This was on one of those spin-yourself rides. She totally loved it, and kept saying "faster! faster!"

We would have gone to the water park, but there had been lightning a couple of hours before, so it was closed. Boo! We all had lots of fun, though. :o)

Birthday morning!!

Helping to open presents from Nana and Papa.

A sparkly tutu! She loves it! She wore it for the next two weeks almost every day!

A sticker book which she also loved. She keeps it on her bookshelf with her other books, but the stickers didn't last the rest of the day. ;o)

And My Little Pony toys!! She loved them!

More My Little Ponies from Mommy and Daddy.

She really liked them. Couldn't keep still, obviously. :o)

And aNOTHER My Little Pony toy -- a big Fluttershy from Meemaw and Papaw. She keeps this one in her backpack to take with her places.

From Shiloh -- Shiloh embroidered "bff sisters" on some fabric for SarahMae. It was adorable. I think I'm going to frame it and hang it in her room. :o)

Looking at her cards!

Look at that sweetness!

The big present from Mommy and Daddy (being honest, mostly Mommy). I made her (finally!) a rainbow quilt for her bed. She likes it, I think. :o)

Next up, Build-A-Bear! This is the first time that she's actually gone in and made her own. We've just bought them for her the last two years.

I love this picture!

She chose a butterfly. She loved giving it a bath so much that we bought one of the scrubbers so that she can give her a bath at home, too. :o)

These pictures are so funny -- she insisted on carrying her own bags, and with her little skirt and the way she was walking, she looks so cute!

Finally, ice cream. Again. :o) She chose marshmallow, and even though it's bright yellow, it surprisingly dye-free and actually tasted like marshmallows. :o)

I think Shiloh had a peanut-butter one. It was yummy!

And that's all for SarahMae's third birthday! I'm sorry it took me a month to get it online; I uploaded the pictures almost immediately, but kept forgetting to caption and publish it. Anyway, thank you all for the presents and well wishes on her birthday. I can't believe I have a preschooler now and not a toddler!!

Some old pics, random videos and Cinderella!

Hey all! I wanted to share some pictures from the last few weeks of the girls and their goings-on. These first few are actually from a few months ago, but I just realized I never posted them, so here they are. :o)

SarahMae in her tutu. She looooves tutus. :o)

Shiloh practicing her embroidery. She bounces around from craft to craft and likes lots of different kinds, but she always comes back to hand embroidery. She says that it's relaxing. I would agree!

Also....relaxing? :o) She gave these out as part of some of her Valentines. :o)

A series of photos of SarahMae from the front yard. I included several because I liked her expression in each of them! She's so sweet!

Sculpting the other day. I *think* this was a tree? :o/

Shiloh at an American Heritage Girls event. They met to make soda pop tab bracelets for Crisis Aid International. The organization works to stop sex trafficking in the US and abroad. They came and spoke to the girls in a very general way about what they do and how we can help. They sold the bracelets at our closing ceremony and donated the money to Crisis Aid. Another thing I particularly loved about this is the older girls helping the younger girls. :o)

Being goofy. She always puts my glasses on upside down. :o)

Crafting things. Shiloh was working on bracelets for end-of-the-year gifts for the girls in her American Heritage Girls unit. SarahMae couldn't be left out, so we got something out for her, too. It's a decorative sticky-paper with tissue shreds. It kept her occupied for an hour! Bliss!

Then a walk. SarahMae always likes to take her stroller, and so Shiloh dug in her closet on this particular walk and found hers from when she was that age!

 Tea Party. There were actual scrambled eggs at breakfast, but it quickly turned into a grand affair with pretty dresses, tiaras, and so on. Girls are fun. :o)

More sculpting on another day.

American Heritage Girls meeting. It was our last one of the year before our closing ceremony, so we had a pizza party at the park. (Well, we didn't have pizza, but everyone else did.) These are some of the Tenderhearts, the 1st-3rd graders.

Playing "Little Sally Walker." Anyone remember that game? Rick had never heard of it, probably because it was totally a girls' game. Cute!

Shiloh got a bow and arrow! And I have almost no pictures of it, I can't believe it! She's been saving her money for almost 8 months to buy one, and she finally had enough! We agreed that if she saved to buy the bow and arrow, that we would buy her a target. She's been practicing when the weather is nice. I'm impressed with how she's been sticking with it!

This photo is pretty funny, mid-shot. Hah!

I promise to get more photos of the bow and arrow soon!

And now, Cinderella!! Unfortunately, I don't have any on-stage photos!! Argh! Only the company photographer is allowed to take photos and she hasn't gotten them to us yet. Boo! Here's some of her in her costume, anyway. She was a mouse again, just like in the Nutcracker, but she was a nice mouse, so she was happy about it. :o)

In her "greys." They had to wear their hair in two small buns on each side to hide behind mouse ears, and while she hated it, it was SO CUTE!

Doesn't her hair look so red here?

SarahMae came with us during the first dress rehearsal. She had a total blast watching all the "ballet friends," as she said get all dressed up. :o)

Aahh!! Full mouse costume!!

She was so good, she had a corner where she just hung out.

All the mice lined up!

Shiloh and her friend Mariella. They are the youngest and smallest, and a part was written for them to come on at the very end of the second Act separately, which means that they hung out together the most waiting for their part while everyone else was done.

Let me tell you -- painting on the nose and whiskers was really difficult! It may seem silly, but it had to be done a certain way and took for.ev.er. They were all so cute, though!

Random cuteness outside the theater on the last performance.

On a walk last week one day.

SarahMae was blowing on a dandelion and couldn't be bothered to look at the camera. :o)

Shiloh and Katelyn at swim practice. We only have one more week left, I know Shiloh will miss getting together with her friend. :o/

Zoo trip!

Daddy/daughter cake making for the American Heritage Girls closing ceremony. Shiloh chose to enter the "Girliest" category and make a Rapunzel cake with figurines. I think she just wanted the figurines. :o)

The yellow-ish icing (from-scratch buttercream icing colored - and flavored - with lemon and orange zest. It. Was. Amazing. Seriously Amazing. It was supposed to be Rapunzel's hair wrapping around the cake. :o)

Shiloh receiving her badges at the American Heritage Girls closing ceremony. :o)

Shiloh likes to dress up SarahMae. She picked out a dress, a hair tie, put her hair in pigtails, gave her a bracelet and a ring. I think SarahMae likes it, too. :o)

Well, and she dressed herself up, too. :o)

A new thing. She's so proud she can put her hair up "like mommy" in a towel after a shower. It's cute!

 Just two girls coloring. Being adorable. :o) Shiloh didn't know I was recording at first, but SarahMae caught on pretty quick and had some stories to share. My phone died before she could tell all she wanted to. :o)

One last video, this was from the zoo. This is how SarahMae usually "walks." I put that in quotations because she rarely "walks" anywhere, she often leaps and jumps and dances everywhere she goes. Here, she's practicing her "sashay"s, a ballet move she recently learned from Shiloh. To say she's excited about ballet is a vast understatement. :o)

That's all for now. We do school year-round, and I promised Shiloh that after Memory Masters, we would take a two-week break. We started again this week and we're working on getting back into a regular routine. SarahMae has discovered how to aggravate her older *very* reactive older sister and does so for entertainment whenever the mood strikes. It gets old. Real old. They can go from being at each other's throats to inseparable in an instant. We're working on using "gentle hands and gentle words." It's a work in progress. :o) 

Shiloh's recital is next month and then we're officially on summer break from activities!! Yay!! We'll have the video of Shiloh's musical up, too, as soon as we can get it uploaded. Hope you enjoyed the peek into our craziness these past weeks!