Annie's Birthday

Annie turned 3 years old!! Here's a montage of our little lady on her birthday over the years. There are 4 pictures, but of course the first one is of her 0th birthday. 

At 3 years old, Annie is a gentle, happy, and energetic soul. In the last year, she has developed a lot in the "play pretend" area. Her favorite pretend scenarios lately are Diego and Cinderella. With Diego we "save the animals in trouble." With Cinderella, Annie drops a slipper, runs away and hides, and then makes Aaron or I pick up the slipper, try it on the evil stepsisters, and then put it on Annie (aka Cinderella). After that, we dance around the room/palace in complete bliss. Annie still changes her clothes up to 20 times per day. I'm hoping by next year we'll be able to report that she has grown out of that. Annie loves to help feed Scottie at dinner now that he is eating some solid foods. If he is laying on the floor, she also likes to help him sit up and put pillows all around him in case he falls over. Annie will be going into Primary in January. She's definitely ready for the change. She threw a mini-fit at church when I wouldn't let her go up and join the kids during the primary program. Annie is the most cute and fun and talkative in the morning right after she wakes up. After a long night of no interaction, she loves to tell me everything on her mind. And I love hearing it. She's a wonderful person. 

For Annie's cake this year, I found some cute ideas on pinterest and asked Annie which one she wanted. She voted for the "rainbow cake" and never looked back. I thought the cupcake caterpillar was fun, but she couldn't be swayed. So the cake pans I borrowed from Heather and Jason (best neighbors ever) were 9 inches instead of 8 inches like the recipe called for. So we 1 1/2'ed the recipe so we would have enough batter. We ended up with A LOT of cake. There were six layers (who really needs indigo) and frosting and dumdums on top. There were 5 cubes of butter in the final creation. It took me about 5 hours to make, which I was not anticipating. But all those colors did look awfully cute.

We got Annie a Cinderella barbie for her present. When Aaron sees a present like this, he usually makes a comment like, "Couldn't we get Annie some Legos for her birthday?" But he wasn't with us at Walmart when I saw Annie ooh and aah over the Cinderella barbie. If he'd been there, his heart would have been softened. I guess I could be proactive and try to get Annie to ooh and aah over the Legos next time. Based on her current mindset, I'm not convinced that would be effective.

I am one lucky mama. We love you, Annie Jane!