Happy Birthday Bethington!!!

Today my little Elizabeth Anne turned 3!!! I am so grateful that she is in my life! There are so many things about her that I love. I remember when she was younger than Jack is now, I tried to give her a piece of toast. She toddled over to me and handed it back, but got very upset when I put it back on the plate. I tried to hand it back to her, but that wasn't what she wanted either. After about 15 minutes of frustrated attempts to figure out what exactly she wanted me to do (she couldn't talk yet), she finally managed to help me figure out that she wanted jam on the toast. That is just such a "Beth" thing. She is so incredibly determined and knows exactly what she wants and how she wants it. From well before she could talk, it was impossible to convince her to like something she didn't or to do something she didn't want to do (which occasionally makes things difficult - like today when she got her b-day card from G'pa and G'ma K and did not want to let us keep the money in it safe for her). She loves playing and has the most wonderful sense of humor. Sometimes I sit nearby when she plays and pretend to read just so I can listen to the story lines she comes up with. She's been talking in complete sentences since she was about 16 months old, which is a good thing since it was very frustrating to both of us to have to figure out exactly what she wanted.

She HATES being dirty and therefore strongly dislikes the beach as the sand sticks to her feet. She usually comes inside every few minutes when the kids are playing in the backyard to wash the dirt off her hands. She also dislikes the snow as it is wet and messy. When we had the snow storm last year (yes, we actually got snow - 6 inches of it!), I dressed her up in Megan's old snow suit so she could play in it. It still makes me laugh to picture the dirty looks she shot me as she stood just outside the back door, not interested in playing in the snow at all.



I love that she still snuggles with me all the time. There are so many times every day where I'll be sitting at the computer and she'll come climb up on my lap to play or where I'll be sitting on the couch and she'll leave what she's playing with to come curl up next to me.

She is currently going through an interesting speech phase. I have no idea where it came from as no one else in our family speaks this way, but she puts a "y" on the end of every thing, and often adds the original word on the end for good measure. For example, her bum is now her "bummy-bum", juice is "juicy-juice", etc.

I can't believe my baby girl is 3! She is growing up so fast! I can't imagine what we did without her and I'm so blessed to have her in my life! I love you, Button!

************************

We didn't do much for her birthday today. We had the family party on New Year's Eve with my family and last night we went out to dinner at Cici's Pizza with Kiki as that is where Beth wanted to go. Today Jack had a dr's appt to get a couple of immunizations he missed from an appt where he wasn't feeling great, so that is how we spent the morning, although Beth did get to have her hair done first as it was her special day! We played with friends in the afternoon, then made pizzas for dinner. Rob skipped boxing to spend the evening with her (even though we went out last night so he could go to his class tonight). We baked a chocolate cake and frosted it with chocolate frosting, topped with blue sprinkles. Jack went to bed early as he wasn't feeling great (due to the shots), but the girls, Rob and I sung "happy birthday" and Beth tried to blow out the candles (I ended up helping).






*************************

By the way, does anyone happen to know what type of creature these eggshells would have been from? The girls found them on our back patio, under the pile of extra bricks. I don't think a bird could fit, but couldn't think of anything that lays hard eggs that would be there. Maybe a snake??? How big are snake eggs???