The Schmidgalls

My baby girl is THREE years old today!! She has been thrilled about her birthday, of course.  Though, the funny thing is she can’t actually say her “th” sound.  She says she is turning “ssree!”

Honestly, I have been a bit sad as we got closer to this birthday.  For some reason, “three” just feels like my baby is now a young lady.  She is really such a big girl.  She sets the table for dinner.  She can work any electronic device.  She plays games on Daddy’s iPod and can choose a video, put it in her DVD player and get it going all on her own!  She takes such good care of her brother.  I mean, sure, she shoves him away from her toys here and there.  But I will often catch her taking him toys or snacks.  I even found her wiping his mouth after a spit-up the other day.  She always calls for me if he is heading into danger (near the stairs, fireplace, eating something off the floor).  In the morning, she goes into his room and gives him toys in his crib, sometimes even crawling in to play with him.  She calls him “Zekey-boy” and makes him laugh!

Ella is such a generous child.  She will share even her favorite food.  She is affectionate and gives hugs and kisses easily.  She is silly and a bit of a ham.  She has passion and independence.  God knew exactly the little girl for me!

Whenever I would ask Ella what she wanted to do for her birthday party, she was clear - “I wanna go to Aunt Lora’s house!”  When I would ask her what she wanted for her birthday, “I want candles!” (like on her cake).  Well, she isn’t lost on the spirit of festivity.  For Christmas all she wanted was “a Christmas tree with lights!”

Ella is pretty loyal - she decides her favorite things and stays true to them.  She has adored Snow White as long as I can remember.  She is also fiercely dedicated to Grover monster, certainly not the most popular Sesame Street character.  She wanted a Grover birthday party this year! We decided to do dinner for just family at Aunt Lora’s and celebrate a bit early since we have a church retreat this weekend.

It was a special day so we had to do a special hairstyle!  Mama put Ellie’s hair in hot curlers for the first time!

No joke, once I showed her hair in the mirror, she started posing all over the place, looking back at me over her shoulder all sassy.  Have I mentioned how much I love this child?

This fancy little outfit arrived in the mail from Mimmy just hours before the party.  The gloves were her own little addition.  I said she was independent!

“Booter, are you excited about your birthday?”

“How old will you be again?”

Aunt Lora and Grandma decorated the house for the birthday girl.  She loved it!  She made a special request for one of her favorite foods - Broccoli Cheese Soup, made by Aunt Lora.  I made her a Grover cake, chocolate on request.

Loved by her mama…

“Wait, we forgot…how old again?”

She got shy when we all sang to her!

Blow ‘em out baby!

Spoiled with love…Uncle Matt and Aunt Amanda stopped by early before Matt had to run off to sit in the chamber for the State of the Union address by President Obama.  Just another day working for the United States Congress!  The Tinkerbell purse was a hit!

Little brother helper!

Look, she even reads the card.  Okay, she looked at it, couldn’t get the card out so tossed it aside!

Wow Grandma!

All grown up! 1, 2, 3!

Fun little Ella story to end…

Since she gave up her pacifier, Ella has had a harder time going to sleep at night.  She doesn’t understand why she has to be in her bed alone but Mommy and Daddy get to share.  A while back we started telling her that Mommy and Daddy are married and that is why we sleep in the same bed.  She seemed to accept that.  Well, last week, she woke up a few times in the night - out of the ordinary.  I was so tired, I finally went and got in bed with her to soothe her.  We both fell back asleep and in the morning, she woke to find me there and clearly didn’t remember me coming in.  Her eyes got wide and she said, “Mommy, we’re married?!”  I busted out laughing!  Clever girl!

Thank you Lord for three years with such a special little person!  It is such a gift to be her parents.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.