Happy Third Birthday!

This weekend Rosalie turned a big three years old. We had a couple of her friends over to play. It took a long time for us to figure out something low-key to do that would also be fun and memorable. We wound up getting a pack of new socks and a bagful of craft supplies, including a healthy dose of googly eyes. Right before the party, I put some googly eyes on a sock and the sock started to talk to Rosalie. She started to laugh hysterically and ran towards Daddy, never taking her eyes off the sock. She was mildly terrified. Do not underestimate the power of googly eyes. The puppet-making activity seemed to be a hit. The kids were engrossed in their creations.



Rosalie made "puppets" out of her current obsession, pom poms. She calls them pom balls.


Anyway, a few of the socks (made by kids & adults alike) decided to get together for a group shot today:


Also on Saturday, some of the adults helped to transform a refrigerator box and old pieces of fabric into a puppet theater:


I only was able to get one shot of the theater in use, because someone taller than four feet needed to get inside there and keep the theater from getting knocked over from the inside out before the "show" started. In the end, most of our theater consisted of puppets singing songs along with the audience. Here's George taking his puppet for a spin.


Cake time was delicious, if I may humbly say so myself. Rosalie wanted a strawberry cake, so I did a lemon cake with chopped up strawberries inside, and frosted it with a homemade frosting made from berries that wound up tasting like strawberry ice cream. Since I'm not a super-experienced baker, I was glad that it turned out well.


All in all Rosalie had a nice time with her buddies. I'm glad that we only had a small gathering, because it would have been a madhouse otherwise. As it was, Rosalie kept composed and was a hostess with the mostest even til the very end, when it was time to say goodbye.



After naptime, Rosalie woke up and opened her presents. She was especially excited about her books, puzzle, doctor kit, and this kitty.


She was also very excited that her Grandmama came to visit. Even though she was distracted by her beautiful pom ball puppets.



At the end of the day, when we were putting her into bed for night-night time, she sleepily asked us, "Is it still my birthday?" Our little cutie pie.



By the way, Rosalie has grown 4 inches in a year! In other news, she has learned how to tell her left from her right! (Thank you, Berry Patch). She's also getting really good with puzzles. We are so proud.

Patience

Rosalie and I made a gingerbread house this weekend (using a kit). There were a couple of pictures on the kit's box that showed ways we could design the house, and Rosalie picked out the more complex one. It was a challenge in the making. In the end, though, it was a great success! A few things impressed me while we worked on this project: Rosalie is developing some great patience.

For example, I was being meticulous about a few details, which included rolling out spice dots flat and cutting them into square shapes for the windows!). She watched from her spot next to me on the stepstool, and she sang little songs while I finished doing that. I guess it helped that I gave her the scraps as I cut them off.

I was also impressed by her ability to delay her own gratification. We were building with candy, you know. Candy. She mostly was able to keep it out of her mouth. When she asked for candy at the end of the building process, I said, "Do you want it now, or do you want it after dinner tonight for dessert? Because we're not going to do both." She chose to wait to have it for dessert. This pleases me to no end. How did a 3-year-old make that choice? She thought ahead and decided that she'd enjoy some candy after dinner. What adult could do that?

For that matter, this whole process took a long time, because we had to wait for pieces of the house to dry before putting other pieces on, and then we had to wait another couple hours before actually attaching the candy. I think we did the whole thing in four sessions, and she really rolled with it. Like I said, this is amazing to me. I'm starting to think she inherited her patience from Michael.