Mango's 3rd Birthday

My baby is no longer a baby. If you accidentally call her "babe" or "baby,"she will declare loudly that she is NOT a baby, but is now a big girl like Mommy and Daddy. In fact, she is so much not a baby that she voluntarily stopped sucking her thumb (at least when she isn't in bed). I had said something to her months ago that she could keep sucking her thumb until she was 3 and then she had to stop because she would be a big girl. I said it a couple of times, but hadn't mentioned it the past couple of weeks because I didn't want to pressure her. But it completely sunk in. She didn't say anything, but we noticed on her birthday that she would raise her little thumb up, look at it suddenly, and put it back down. I'm amazed. It's funny too, because now that she doesn't have anything stopping up her mouth, she talks nonstop very very loudly. We'll be cruising through the grocery store and people will laugh at us because she's practically screaming that there are watermelons and that she doesn't like them. I had no idea she was such a chatterbox.

She's also growing so much. We started back up with gymnastics last week and my eyes were suddenly able to recognize how big she is. Her legs are so long and her cheeks are starting to lose the baby fat. She's still teeny tiny for her age, but she really is getting so grown up. She is the same age Strawberry was when Apple came along, and I remember thinking that Strawberry was so big.

We had a lot of fun for her big day, starting with pancakes with powdered sugar. The kids have decided that they like powdered sugar on everything instead of syrup. I have no problem with this because I was getting tired of all of them getting it in their hair. After the big girls went to school, she and I went shopping. She needed a new dress so we hit the mall. When we walked past Crazy 8, she saw this outfit in the window that she HAD to have, including the bunny faux fur vest. I didn't cave in to the bunny shoes, but the rest of it was pretty irresistible. 

We also hit the bakery so that she could pick out her own cake. Is this the cutest? It was actually really good, though there was was too much frosting. I thought it looked like Sully from Monsters Inc. She actually didn't eat a bite. She just wanted to look at it. My kids aren't crazy about cake and pie. Wierdos. :)

She wanted to go to Applebees for her birthday dinner. We had driven by it a few times and she really liked the big apple. I'm not sure if she thought that it was an actual apple restaurant, but she didn't seem too disappointed with her corndog. At home we opened presents and got calls from grandmas and grandpas. She had a super fun day. We are so happy to have this sweet little princess in our lives. We didn't space our kids out this far on purpose, but it has been really nice to have more one on one time with the little ones at ages 2 and 3. They are so fun at this age as they learn how to exist in their families and society. I'm always amazed at the things she picks up and understands. I mean, holy smoke, they learn a complex language just from hearing it. So cool. :) We are just crazy about this little girl. I mean big girl.