3rd birthday party!

Suzie's present to the birthday girl....had to wear to bed the night she opened it and for her birthday party!

Ariel couldn't be Ariel without her trusty companion Sebastian!

Birthday Surprise!

early morning wake up call for the birthday girl!

Rob and I (when I say we I mean me) took on the task of completely redoing her bedroom for her birthday. Although it was a lot of fun picking out everything it was not good timing as we also had her birthday and her birthday party in the same four days.

We had her sleep in her brother's room the two nights before her birthday. It was her first sleepover! oh wait, she slept in our room for the first 11 1/2 months. hmmm...

She fell asleep in Tyler's room and we put her into her new room before we fell asleep so she woke up to a new room and new furniture! oh, and did I mention the birthday fairy stopped by to decorate her room and give her some small treasures??

The first words out of her mouth was "It is my favorite color!". I do have it on tape. I was waiting patiently in her chair for her to wake up. I will upload the video if I can later.

3 year check up

We had her 3rd year check up today and we were very excited! Her hearing test consisted of wearing headphones and she had to put a block in the basket everytime she heard the beep. I think some beeps were really loud becuase she would get so excited that she would throw the block into the basket. She is 32 pounds and 37 inches! Three more inches and she can ride the next stage of rides at Great America. I am hoping that she will be able to ride a lot of the rides when we go to Disneyland in two weeks. I am not sure which is more exciting....Disneyland or Grams and Gramps!

The color is off in the pictures because the light was pretty low in the room and the color of the walls was the same as her shirt.

The eve of her 3rd birthday

Can you believe that our daughter will be three years old?? We are still in shock. So many changes has been happening to her. She loves to sing and boy does she! She will sing in the car (the entire road trip), the bedroom, while we eat dinner, you name it she will sing it. It took a few weeks and a trip to her preschool for back to school night before we truly understood all the words. When she sings Jesus Loves Me, she will put her arms up like she is flexing her muscles and growl the word 'strong'. So cute! She also loves her clothes. I think we have officially given up on toys (except for her baby items) because she will change her clothes three or four times a day. I will have to start posting her pictures when she comes out of her bedroom in the morning.

Our first day of school

I started a job at Valley Elementary which means that Alyssa started preschool!

The one on the right is her after I told her to tell Mommy good bye. She literally didn't care! I think that has a lot to do with Miss Judy.

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I am a little bummed because I could have had both kids at the same school for a year but they both like their school so I will manage. Actually, Tyler rides with me to my work and then boards a bus from my campus to his campus but I still have to pick him up after school. After two years of dropping Tyler off at school Alyssa thinks it is pretty neat that Tyler and I drop Alyssa off in the morning. We all got lucky that her preschool teacher is the same gal that teaches her Sunday school class every Sunday. We have had Miss Judy for the past year and we will get her for the next full year. Talk about consistency!

Rob and I will be attending back to school on Thursday and will get some pictures of her classroom and her friends. My friend Melissa enrolled her daughter Lyle in the same school and they will also be in the same class! We all think that is pretty cool!

Getting her first pillow

She absolutely loves her pillow!

Girl time

The girls dressed up so much. I would do Lyssa's hair before leaving and then Taylor would go into the bathroom to get herself ready and Lyssa would take out her pretties and want her hair exactly like Taylor. I didn't learn to wait till Taylor did hers first for quite a few weeks. :(

Photo time!

It was a total coincidence that the girls matched. Lyssa bummed because I wanted to take a photo of Taylor to send to her parents. She made a face and I couldn't resist snapping her instead.

My niece Taylor came for a visit

The Oakland Zoo had 7 giraffes and it was dinner time!
Lyssa and her cousin Sarah.
The kids looking at the alligator. Three of them hanging out at the bottom of the pool.

Bless her heart, she managed to make it to all 4 plus weeks with us. We did have a great time showing her our favorite spots. My favorite part of the Oakland Zoo was in the beginning. I was trying to pay with my ATM card and they told me that I could go in free because the CC machine was broken. WOO HOO!

Toddler Bed

She is doing okay considering she has only fallen out once in the past 4 weeks and got up a few times. She won't come out in the morning which is nice but man, putting her to bed is a complete bear. I know better than giving her food or giving her anything out of her routine when she is in bed and once I made the mistake of giving her a few cups of yogurt because she didn't eat much at all. Never again. It can take up to 90 minutes before she falls asleep. She claims that she is not tired, hungry, wants to play, etc and even wants more cuddles. I really want to put the crib side back up but know that is not going to happen. She will get used to it and we will have our little girl back in no time.

First time in a toddler bed

Daddy and his little angel.

We are preparing her for a big girl bed (okay, who are we kidding, we are preparing US for her big girl bed) and so we removed the crib side off today. By the look of her and her drool spot she will be totally fine with sleeping in her bed. We may have a different update in the morning though. ;)

Monterey Bay Aquarium

I don't think I realized that buying a membership to the Aquarium would mean that I would have to go twice in 11 days. While I enjoyed watching the kids enjoy all the animals, I really enjoyed the long drive home with 4 sleeping kids! I tried to take a picture of them while driving and I hit the things on the side of the road that makes a loud noise and it woke a kid up so I scratched that and went back to driving. My 12 year old niece is visiting for the month. I thoroughly enjoy having twin 12 year olds who will be turning 13 at the end of October.

Jungle Time!

It is very rare when he lets me take a picture especially as embarassing as this one!

Having fun with Grams and Gramps at the Monterey Aquarium! Alyssa was very excited to see the fish but not the sharks and big fish. She ended up waking up in the middle of the night and we seem to think she was scared of them. :( We still enjoyed our wonderful weekend with them!

4th of July at our Church

We took the Cox girls to Great America. While Alyssa still thoroughly enjoys the speeding roller coasters, she is apprehensive of the pool.