Happy 3rd Birthday!

First a few stats (Weight: 28 lbs (25%) and Height: 35.5 lbs (25%)).  Interests right now are trains, puzzles, Olaf in Frozen, Doc McStuffins, Minnie Mouse, pretend play, make believe, hiding and monsters (i.e. we often have to hide from good/bad/funny monsters).  She knows all her letters, is obsessed with the letter "C," knows numbers 1 through 10, counts everything (prefers things in 3s), has memorized several books that she reads back to us (two favorites are Berenstain Bears' Picnic and Where the Wild Things Are), and is starting to learn how to spell her name.


Now on to the birthday celebration: Caroline celebrated her third birthday with about 15 friends at JW Tumbles.  Her Nana and Pop were also able to come into town to celebrate.  Caroline unfortunately had a bit of a fever on the morning of her birthday party so wasn't quite herself, but I think that she still had a great time.  She was really aware of her birthday and knew that she'd be 3 in February (and talked about her birthday and party a lot).  For her party, she requested many balloons and cake as well as strawberries, blueberries, oranges and cheese.  She also really wanted people to sing "Happy Birthday" to her, but when the time came, I think that she got a little overwhelmed and didn't like the candles and that they'd turned out the lights to sing.  A few pictures from the party including those many balloons and cake:

Caroline received some wonderful gifts for her birthday, including train accessories (station, tunnel and more tracks), a pink train, sticker, paint and coloring books, several puzzles, sidewalk chalk, an outfit for her doll, an American Girl corgi puppy, a pink stuffed anteater, and several cute outfits.

Christmas in Texas

We were in Houston for Texas and Caroline had a great time playing with Nana, Pop and Tia Jo.  The trip included a trip to the Children's Museum, Natural Science Museum and Zoo along with the Texas Bowl (Go Hogs!). 

Caroline received a dollhouse and lots of stocking stuffers from Santa, more train tracks, an outfit for her doll, a Little People nativity, a Razorback shirt, and pink cowboy boots from Nana and Pop and musical instruments from Tia Jo.  We also brought a few gifts from DC for her - magnatiles, Bear puzzle, and Thomas the train engines.

Checking out her dollhouse from Santa:

With her stocking from Santa:

Christmas dress before church:

Helping everyone open their presents:

Fun with Tia Jo:

Christmas in DC

This was the first year that Caroline was really into Christmas.  She loved all the Christmas lights, trees, wrapping presents, songs and rearranging all her presents under the tree.  We celebrated in DC before we went to Texas and opened our family's presents and presents from Spanky's family.  Caroline received Legos, a play doctor's outfit, a Razorback outfit, Minnie Mouse puzzle and calendar and play food for her kitchen from her Meme and Papa and more Legos from her Uncle Brad.  We gave her a scooter while we were in DC since we couldn't easily get it to Texas.

Rearranging and rearranging all her presents:

Zoo Lights!  Ride on the carousel and watching the Thomas train (loves the model trains):

Opening and playing with her presents: