Happy 3rd Birthday!

We had a wonderful day today! Mallie Grace turned 3! We are so thankful she celebrated with us at home.
Her first birthday at GLA

 Her second birthday at GLA

And finally, here we are today, celebrating at home. Thank you, LORD. We had a pretty low key "party". After talking about it all day, practicing "3" with our fingers, and icing the cake, she was definitely in party mode. She had fun blowing out the candles before I could even get them all lit. After several practice rounds, she finally let them stay lit while we sang. I think she loved having all of the attention on her.

We gave her an American Girl Bitty Baby. I bought this baby over a year ago and she has sat in my closet waiting. I'm not sure who was more excited....me to give it to her or her getting a new baby. She LOVES babies. She loves to pretend with them---feed them, bathe them, give them naps. This baby is special because she has brown skin like Grace. :)
She also got a "See 'n Say". I remember loving mine as a kid. We've been working on animals and their sounds and she loves to talk about them. The cookie set she got is also quite fun. It's a "slice and bake" cookie set with velcro. It has a pretend knife so she can slice them and then icing to decorate. She put them all on the pan and immediately took them to her little oven to bake them. We've been talking a lot about hot ovens and hot stoves and she was very animated with the oven mitt, telling us all to stay back and "SHOH!!!", which means hot. What's so amazing is that this precious one has never even baked cookies! She just understood that they're food to be baked because they're on a pan and I showed her the oven mitt. You better believe we'll be baking REAL cookies tomorrow. :)
Another fun gift was a high chair for her baby. She has had so much fun feeding her baby and baby must eat with us at every meal. It's so fun to watch her talk to the baby in Kreyole. Her Nana gave her a quilt today that she made. It's super soft and Grace immediately took it to naptime with her. Tonight she used it to swaddle her new baby. Such fun times.

Today she experienced another first....her first trip to a grocery store. I only needed a few things and we were in and out pretty quickly, but it was amazing to watch her. She was just trying to take it all in. I put her in the child seat of the buggy before she could protest and she tolerated it ok, but asked to get out a few times. I am so thankful that so far, she's handled transitions well. It was even a misty, grey afternoon. I think she had more to say about the rain than the store. :)

All in all, today was a wonderful day. Yesterday was a very  hard day with quite a few challenges, so I'm extremely thankful for today. I know no child is perfect and I don't expect her to ever be, but we can see her adjusting and growing more comfortable with us each day. There were no power struggles at all today. No "time ins" either (a "time in" is different than a time out because she's on my lap and not alone in her room). I am prepared for whatever tomorrow holds, but I'm so thankful for the joy of today.
Happy Birthday, precious girl!