THREE Years Old

Elisabeth Kae,

You are THREE years old, and everyone knows it. You announce all the time that you can do all sorts of things now because you're three. You say, "I can open the fridge by myself, because I'm three now." Or "I can pour my own milk, because I'm three." You're pretty proud of yourself.

You are feisty, independent, friendly, outgoing, dramatic, sassy, strong willed, happy, and hilarious all rolled together. You wear us out, warm our hearts, and make our lives so much better. You are our joy and the princess of our family. Our lives without you would be so boring.

You never stop talking and singing. You're on a kick of singing the Sofia the First theme song now, and I hear it all day long, and you always have something to say, especially in the car. You can't stand silence. You say the funniest phrases that seem so grown up for your age like, "yeah sure, I can do that" or "I changed my mind about that."

You like to be the center of attention and have a fear of being left out. You always want to be in on the action of whatever is going on at the time.

You love princesses, and babies and playing with your dollhouse, but you also like to build with legos, play trains and superheroes with your brothers too. When you play babies or dollhouse, people always have to go on a trip either to school or the park or Disney World. Most of your play is just getting everything ready for your babies or dolls to go somewhere. If we're outside, you want to be swinging but will settle to play other things if someone refuses to push you for the entire time. You love to go to the swimming pool and pretend to play mermaids and make fruit smoothies. You are starting to do a little better playing by yourself, but you always, always prefer to have someone playing with you. You love to play with your friends and your brothers (when they let you be in charge, ha!).

You are in ballet and gymnastics this Fall, and you love both of them. You do ballet "tricks" all day long. You like to show off and have others watch you. You're athletic and gymnastics comes pretty naturally for you for now, and you always enjoy going (and have to make sure we're watching you).

You have an opinion about everything- what you wear, what you eat, what we watch on TV, what our plans are for the day. You're not afraid to voice your preferences and have the most hilariously logical responses to everything. You are bossy and like to be in charge of whatever is going on. You get super frustrated if your brothers or anyone else doesn't let you lead and be in charge of whatever is going on.

Your favorite color is pink, but you'll settle for purple if pink isn't available. You say the other colors are boy colors. You always want a pink bow in your hair and want to wear a tutu everyday. Really, though you'd live in your jammies if I'd let you. You always want to wear pajamas during nap time and usually just end up wearing them the rest of the day if we don't have anywhere to go.

You love any princess (Belle, Cinderella, Aurora, Sofia, Ariel) and also love Trolls, Peppa Pig, and Paw Patrol. I think your favorite show right now is Sofia the First, but you also like to watch Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood and random other shows too.

Your favorite foods are spaghetti and meatballs, cheese, milk, princess soup, hot dogs, mac and cheese, pizza and chicken nuggets. Your favorite vegetable is carrots and your favorite fruits are grapes and apples. Almost every night at dinner you say, "I don't like this meal." It drives me crazy, and you're content to just not eat dinner and live without snacks or dessert the rest of the night. You don't usually complain that you're hungry, you just don't eat and tell us that you don't want snacks or dessert. You're not a big breakfast eater either. You were on a cinnamon toast kick for awhile, but you're over that now. Sometimes you eat toast and cheese or yogurt, and you always want milk. You are always ready for lunch and eat a big lunch everyday (probably because you don't eat much breakfast or dinner).

You weigh 33.8 lbs (76%) and are 39inches tall (89%). You've grown four inches in the last year and are going to surpass your brothers soon. You wear 4T clothes and are transitioning to a size 9 shoe.

You still nap most days (probably about once a week, you don't sleep) which I'm thankful for, because your brothers both stopped napping right as they turned three. You nap for about 90 minutes in the afternoons and sleep from about 8:30pm-7:00am. You always want to pray before bedtime and choose three things to pray for- pretty consistently they are Mommy, Daddy, and Princesses. You need fresh water and a snuggle buggy (lately it's your white teddy bear), and I have to cover you up and then talk to you on the monitor. Sometimes you'll come down in the middle of the night and sleep on your blanket on the floor by our bed.

You get excited about everything and have a joy and zeal for life that is contagious. You say, "I'm so excited to go ..." all the time. The anticipation and excitement for your birthday party was through the roof. You couldn't contain yourself most of the time.

You're such a fun mixture of personality. You're sweet and sassy, girly and athletic. You make your presence known wherever you are. You leave me worn out at the end of everyday, so thankful that you're finally in bed, and then by morning, I'm missing you and can't wait for you to wake up and give me snuggles. We love you so much and are excited to see how you continue to grow and mature. I just know you're going to do big things someday.