Alice Week: her birthday...and everything else.

look at that face! i mean, LOOK AT THAT FACE! she is so cute.

anyway.

Alice's birthday was super fun. we woke up hearing her yell at Ellie, like she normally does. then Ellie came out of the room, and made sure we were awake, and we all went in and sang "Happy Birthday" to the lil two year old. she was really awkward and looked away the entire time, until we mentioned presents. video evidence:

funny kid! and did you see that bedhead?? awesome!

then the girls ran out to the front room where they discovered a plethora of birthday goodness, including balloons in doorways, pennant banners, happy birthday signs, and of course, presents. it was all very exciting.

Ellie was very anxious for Alice to start opening presents. and Alice was so cute opening them! she kept giving the most darling, expressive faces. like, "oh! my dreams came true!" or "you got this for ME!?" or "i've never seen something so cool in my life!" very happy for a parent to feel like the presents were a hit. oh, and she made sure i knew that she was "three" and not "two" all morning. ok then, Alice.

Alice carried around that singing Ariel the rest of the morning- and boy was Ellie jealous. she kept asking when Alice was going down for a nap. um. it's like 8 am, kid. not for a while. but Alice is used to Ellie's....heavy involvement in all her life's experiences, so she handled it fine. second children are so resilient.

 

after presents, we put on our birthday hats (which Alice LOVED), sang "happy birthday" again (i mean, we take every opportunity we can get to sing this song on their special day), and ate some homemade pancakes + homemade syrup- one of Alice's faves. they were pretty cute eating their pancakes with those birthday hats on.

for the morning, we kinda took it easy- letting the girls enjoy the new toys-- and then we took Ellie to preschool-- and Alice and i had a little one-on-one birthday date. it had been several months since we had been to the Zoo. i doubted if Alice even remembered it-- so we trekked out to Oakland together. we had such a fun afternoon!
 

on our first animal sighting of the little Sun-Bears, Ting Ting the bear was sitting really close to the fence. i swear he saw Alice, climbed over to the tree stump, and stood on his hind legs and wiggled his fingers as if to say "hello birthday girl." she loved that bear!

she also was a huge fan of the lil monkeys, the giraffes, and the elephants. i personally was a huge fan of all of her "Wook's!" and "what's dat's?" cute curious lil thing.

we ended our zoo day with a carousel ride-- and then had to jet off to pick up Ellie from school.

 it was a quick trip, but totally worth it. i treasure one-on-one time with these sweeties.

once we were all home, i let the girls have a little down time before we headed out for some more fun- playing at a play place called "the jungle" with daddy, and pizza + cupcakes at "Skipolini's" (our favorite local pizza place) with grandma + grandpa, who showered the birthday girl with lots of love and attention. the girls laughed their heads of with daddy through those tunnels, and then ate as much pizza as they could possibly handle at Skips. and then i let Alice eat as many cupcakes (frosting only, of course- per her request) as she wanted.

(side note: i apologize for the somewhat blurry pictures; i think the setting must've been off or something...but a lil blurry is better than none. so they shall suffice).

 busy day. happy day. fun day. perfect day.

it's funny when i think of all the hoopala i go through to make birthdays such a big deal. i know some of you may think, don't you think you're going a little overboard? but i don't really think so. the reason i like to make birthdays such a big deal is because every person is so special and deserves to be celebrated that way at least one day a year. so to me, birthdays are just that: a celebration of a person's life! and since i love the people in my little life so much, of course i want to make sure that my people feel extra celebrated and loved on their special days- it's basically my way of telling them "my life is special because someone as special as you is in it."

and Alice is truly special. she is spunky. she is oozing with personality. she loves to twirl and dance. she loves to put her hands in her pockets. she loves to say, "i wanna do it MYSELF!" she loves pizza and fruit snacks. she hates drinking water -- but LOVES drinking applejuice. she is currently obsessed with the iPhone. she says "that's so cute" and it makes my heart melt. she likes to wear big fluffy skirts, even over her overalls. she adores Rapunzel and Ariel and Cinderella- but also loves Jessie and Woody and basically every other pertinent disney character. she loves that lovey of hers. and that thumb, too. she always prays simultaneously to another person praying (she'll never just sit and listen to the prayer)- but they are always so sweet. she is naughty, but is good at saying sorry- though it sounds like this: "i forry." she knows Jesus, and points Him out to me when she notices Him. she voluntarily tells both M and i that she loves us. and of course, we love her, to the highest mountain top.

xoxo

p.s. just one more Alice post left -- her birthday party! which may not come for a few days, since i have lots of other things to post about, too. man. life is busy. hope you're staying cozy and enjoying my most favorite season of all!