Animal parade with party hats. 45 balloons. Pancakes with strawberries, raspberries, whipped cream and buttermilk caramel syrup. Palo Alto Jr. Museum (the "big turtle" was Holly's favorite animal there). Lunch with Dad at the office. Cake baking. Pizza for supper. Presents. Chit chat with grandparents. Sing happy birthday and eat cake. Bathtime. Bedtime.

It was a fun, and full day. So full in fact, that Holly didn't even open all her presents! We loved celebrating our three-year old!

Water beads, aquagems, whatever you want to call them, are so much fun! The start off as these itty bitty hard spheres. But when you soak them in water, they grow to the size of a marble and are fairly firm and smooth (although I believe you can purchase them pre-hydrated). You can get them in a variety of colors. I gave Holly and Greta a small tub of them and a ice cube tray. Greta kept wanting to eat them, and while they're non-toxic and I still didn't want her to devour them. Holly loved them and calls them water "beans." Doing this activity taught me that we need a second toddler chair. Greta will sit and participate much better when she has a chair to help her stay in one place. We'll remedy that in next month's budget. Water beads are a winner in our house! 

Idea originally found here.

Holly has been looking forward to her birthday for quite some time. She's always throwing a "party" with her friends or making imaginary birthday cake. I've been pretty excited for her birthday too! I bought the fabric for her birthday dress and the pattern far before I really needed to (I make a birthday dress each year for my girls). Holly was imaptient for me to sew it up and when I finally did, she was so pleased! She wore her birthday dress for the first time on Saturday. We dropped Greta off at a friends and took Holly to a movie, just the three of us. We saw "Brave" which was in fact far too scary for our three year-old especially in a big loud theater. Major parent fail. It took about a half hour for our normal Holly to come back! Ice cream helped. Even though the movie was a bust, I loved spending time with just her. She's an amazing little girl. I've said it before and I'll say it again, she has such a big heart! She's so social and so full of love. She's independent and strong. Holly is wonderful! I can hardly believe she's three years old already.

I've had my little wooden matryoshka for a while now - it was a gift. I love traditional matryoshkas. I really wanted to paint it all beautiful, but I knew I needed to be realistic. And therefore, I knew that it would not turn out beautiful no matter how hard I tried. So, I took the easy way out and painted each lady with chalkboard paint. And you know what, I love it. It works perfectly for me. I'm so glad I finally did that!

Greta is crazy for babies. She is always toting around her baby doll, asking me to swaddle her and singing lullabies. It's adorable. It was fun to see how Greta reacted to holding a real live baby. Oh my word, she's baby crazy! The weirdest part of this whole thing was that Holly was only about a month older than Greta is now when Greta was born.