Nyah's 3rd Birthday

I can't believe Nyah is already 3 years old. The time has just passed too quickly and I don't like to even think about it. She is such a smart little girl and makes us laugh all of the time. Here are a few of the many fun and new things she's doing:

• She knows an amazing number of nursery rhymes. I must admit most of this comes from one of her teachers, Ms. Diane. She goes from Hey Diddle Diddle to Humpty Dumpty to Little Miss Muffet. I can't believe how quickly she catches on.


• She loves to sing. She is always singing songs for us and they range from "I Had a Little Turtle" to "Popcorn Popping" to "Baa Baa Black Sheep". I love hearing her sing. There is even a song Ryan plays in the car all the time by "Boxcar Racer" and she has managed to memorize lots of those words as well.


• She loves to talk. She has so much to tell us. The other day we got home and I seriously think she talked for over a half hour straight. She went from topic to topic with very little time to stop and think in between, I love it.


• She is so excited for her baby brother and to be a "big, big sister". She tells people I have a baby and a baby brother in my tummy and I'm just grateful they are one in the same. :)


• Nyah tells you exactly how it is. The other day she pointed to my belly button and asked what it was. When I told her it was my belly button, she informed me it's in the wrong spot (It should be under my belly according to her) and that there's no hole.


• She's a daddy's girl and I love to watch the two of them interact.


• She is 37 1/4" tall and 33 pounds. She is in the 50th percentile in height and 75th percentile in weight. She has only gained about four pounds this whole year.


• Nyah has an amazing amount of energy. She can just run and run forever.


• She loves to ride her tricycle (very fast I might add).


• She loves tumble time.


• Nyah loves to be outside whether that's at the park, playing on her swing set, or just blowing bubbles and using sidewalk chalk. She loves it.


• Nyah loves to boss Toby around and it's amazing how well he actually listens to her. She is one of the only people he will let win at a game of "Tug of War".


• She can count to 13 and knows her ABC's.


• She has lots of opinions and is a very determined little girl.


• She has compassion and really wants to nurture those around her. I told her Grandpa Grandpa had broken his hand and she looked at me and said, "That's so sad". Then she asked me how it happened and said, "He needs to be careful".

So I had to take the following picture because this is the only baking I did for her birthday. She wanted to take pink cupcakes to school to share with her friends so that's what we did.

Then we were trying to decide what she would like to do for her birthday. She is always telling us she wants to go to the "Monkey Bizness" by our house. That's the name of a business where kids go to play here in Denver and that is also what she calls the McDonald's. She had never played on the toys so we decided to give that a try and she absolutely loved it! She played for hours and had the time of her life. I didn't realize quite how much it was snowing until we left the restaurant and there was about five inches of snow. The good news is McDonald's wasn't very busy due to the blizzard. You will see some pictures of Ryan and I in the pictures (on the toys with her). I went through once but told her she would need to wait for her baby brother to be born before I try that again. It was a lot of work!

Next we went back home to open presents and have cake. That was a great bribe to get her to happily leave McDonald's. :) She loves opening presents. Every time we order something in the mail, she has to be the one to open it.

Ryan and Nyah checking out her new lego set.

Baby stroller and car seat she got for her baby that she has hardly stopped playing with and hauling around ever since.

Nyah with her cake. I decided Dairy Queen does such a good job that I would let them take care of decorating the cake this year. She picked Mickey Mouse and the ice cream cake was yummy. You also see Nyah sampling the cake before we could even get candles in it. She was a big fan of the purple frosting.

Even though it was totally late at this point, you can see our happy little girl below. I love her smile and laughter and am so grateful we have been blessed to have her in our family for the last 3 years. We love this little girl (our cutie patutie) so much.

Big Girl Bedroom

So we decided to turn our spare bedroom into Nyah's bedroom so the nursery will be available for the baby. Nyah has always been in the crib and has never tried to "escape" so we had just left her in that room. However, once we mentioned her having a big girl bed and a new room, she was super excited. We picked out the comforter and then had to move on to paint colors. I am not a decorator by any means. First of all, I'm not any good at it. Second of all, I don't even like it (those two comments are perhaps linked). I wish I had lots and lots of money and then I would just pay somebody to come and do all of the designing and they could do the painting as well. :) Having said that, I really did end up liking the end result.

We kind of put ourselves in a tight spot trying to get it done before Nyah's birthday and before Ryan's mom and sister came to town. The first picture is of Nyah sitting in front of the computer with a pillow and blankets watching cartoons. Since we had to work on it every evening after work, she had to entertain herself quite a bit.

This next picture is when she decided she REALLY wanted to help! She kept coming into the bedroom, and I'm afraid she doesn't really understand the concept of wet paint. She kept bumping into things and getting paint on herself. It was too funny. I did help her paint for a bit though so she could be part of the action. She was so excited to be involved. What a cutie.

Following is the end result of her new room.

She is loving her new bedroom. There have definitely been some challenges with this additional "freedom" at bedtime, but she's adjusting well. Plus she has done really well considering she has been in her new room for about 3 weeks and has "shared" her room for almost 10 of those days. She stayed in her "old bedroom" so her room could be a guest bedroom again. We sure love this little girl!