Happy Birthday WIllow! You're 3!

Yesterday was Willow's birthday. I can totally believe that she is 3.. she looks it, she acts it.. well maybe she acts more 4. She's such a doll. I can't imagine being blessed with a more beautiful (inside & out) little girl. I love you so much Willow-bean!!

I just wrote my dad a big email in response to missing his voicemail yesterday. He'd called to wish our little lady a "Happy Birthday". I'm going to just paste that email here - since it has so much of what I would have written in here anyway! :)

Love you Willow!

Hi Dad,

 

Sorry we missed your call. Willow's party lasted a lot longer than we had planned! We didn't even get around to playing the "Pin the Bow on the Kitty" game I had made! I used that huge dry erase board you brought me as a big magnet for the game. Then I made a big Hello Kitty face out of poster board & put it on the dry erase board. I made bows out of different brightly colored ribbons & hot-glued a strong magnet on the back of each one. Each bow was very different, so the kids could pick the one they wanted and they would also easily be able to point out which bow was theirs at the end of the game.. making it easy to see who had won. The Hello Kitty bow was pretty big, making the game easier for 2 & 3 year olds, & more than one kid could potentially "win".

 

I was very proud of it.. and it was displayed in front of the fireplace throughout the entire party. But before we knew it, people had to leave to get home for dinner & such.. they'd been at our house for 3 hours! It was supposed to be a 1-2 hour party.

 

Willow pointed out to us after she saw her first Hello Kitty that Hello Kitty had no mouth! I had honestly never realized that!

 

Willow loved all of her gifts  - she laid in bed tonight telling me each one and smiling after she said each one. Then I'd name the ones that she hadn't listed and her face would light up again. We tried to keep the party small, but the gift pile still seemed to somehow outnumber the amount of guests we had. She got a bit of each of her favorites- Elsa ("Frozen"), My Little Pony, Hello Kitty & Sophia the First. Judah's aide brought in the biggest gift.. a Hello Kitty shopping cart! Equipped with a cup holder & a cup that looked like a travel coffee cup! J's aide was actually on the clock while she was there - she was a big help! She even did Willow's hair for the party! Judah was pretty overwhelmed by the amount of people and also hurt his leg outside, which only added to the stress I'm sure. I was kind of sad that he was overstimulated when we sang "Happy Birthday" & when Willow blew out the candle. Usually that's his favorite part, but he wasn't able to really enjoy it this time, due to the environment he was in.

 

J's party will be on Sunday. We will again try to keep it small.. inviting only 3 boys. Two of them are in his class. He's very good friends with his classmates. I've never seen Judah as happy in class as I have this year. He greets his friends every morning when they get off the bus, "Hi Jacob! Hi Ross!" Sometimes they even hug! He greets the 3rd kid too. The 3rd kid has some physical challenges that don't allow him to rough house with the other 3 boys. They are all great friends though. Judah loves to run around with Jacob & Ross in the gym. Scott & I each happen to have a friend with a 4 year old boy who has autism. They both have daughters Willow's age too! These friends were at Willow's party.. we'll invite one to J's party. More kids would just be too much for him.

 

If you have a chance to call tomorrow, I'm sure the birthday kids would love to hear from you! And Sebastian would love to fill you in on his karate - he seems to be a natural at that! He's actually taking a leadership & black belt class now - the instructors hand picked him from classes of more than 30 kids as a good candidate for those, so we signed him up!

 

Sorry again about missing your call. Today I was hit with a migraine, just too much going on at once.. this was a bad migraine though, vomiting & such. Scott had to take the day off work. I'm starting to feel much better though.

 

Talk soon, love, Molly.