Charlotte is THREE

It's hard to believe that my sweet Charlotte is already turning 3! She has grown and changed so much this year. I want to do a post all about her right now-- because even though she is quite a handful of energy, just about everything she does is so cute!

 

So, we celebrated her birthday with a family party the day before her actual birthday. She is really really into Tangled right now, so that was our theme. I did lunch at the house -- Taco Soup, Cheesy Mexican Soup, chips & queso and then we did gifts and then cake. It worked out so great and all of her grandparents were able to be here to celebrate with her. She was in heaven! After Harrison's family party and then his friend party she knew exactly what was coming. And, she knew this day was all about her! She'd been talking all week about her birthday and was so excited that morning!  

 The table.

 I did purple and white cookies as party favors.

 Wearing her Tangled shirt. :)

 I think she enjoyed being the center of attention. :)

Of all the gifts that she got that day, I think this wig tops them all. Grandad got it for her and she has worn it almost daily!

After gifts it was time for cake! Yum! And, we can't have a birthday without Braums Ice Cream.

Charlotte was being a ham while eating her cake. I love all her expressions!

This is the face I see daily. It's her mad face. :)

Sunday was her actual birthday. We went to church, home for lunch and Charlotte to nap, then had the first meeting of our new lifegroup at our house! We went out to dinner and had Charlotte's request. She wanted chips and cheesedip and we were happy to take her out for mexican! She's definitely my child with her love for mexican food! Then we came back home and had cupcakes and opened her gifts from us. Harrison & Madeleine couldn't wait to give her their gifts! I love that they get so excited for each other on their birthdays.

Matt & I got her a new tricycle as her big gift. She's already much better at it than I'd expected.

Harrison is such a sweet brother to her (most of the time!). He was the patient all night while she played doctor with her new doctor kit.

We did pink cupcakes and she got to blow out 3 more candles on her big day.

I love my sweet girl so much! I'm so thankful that she is our and we had such a fun weekend celebrating her!

My little helper

Charlotte has become quite a little helper lately. She's still a bit of a pill a lot of the time, but I'm starting to get glimpses of things getting easier.

 

She got a pink shopping cart for Christmas and has been asking me to bring it when we go grocery shopping. I decided to give it a try and it was a HUGE success! She had brought 2 babies along and other than having to stop a couple of time because they were crying, we made it through then entire trip without a problem. I'd been worried that she would get 1/2 way through and decide that she didn't want it anymore, but we filled it up and she pushed it right up to the checkout and unloaded it. We got quite a few smiles from other customers along the way too. I'll admit, she was pretty cute with her cart full of goodies! 

Harrison's Party

We celebrated Harrison's birthday with his big party exactly 2 weeks after his "real" birthday. With his birthday being right before Christmas, we either have to have it 2 weeks before or 2 weeks after. I think doing it after seems to be the best thing although I usually wish I'd done it already. :) It just seems like we have a crazy good turnout in January and I want him to have as many of his friends there as possible! This year, we actually had every single kid we invited come along with some siblings. It was quite a party!  

 

Harrison knew exactly who he wanted to invite from the beginning. I didn't add or take from his list. I really didn't think we'd have all of the school friends we invited come, but it ended up that they all came! He was beyond excited to get to spend a couple of hours playing with all of his favorite people!

 

He wanted a spiderman themed party. We had cake, popcorn/cheeseballs, ice cream and drinks.

 

I filled these mini popcorn boxes with popcorn and cheeseballs. I added some spiderman cut-outs that I found on etsy. 

 The package came with water bottle labels too so I did some of those.

 His favor bags were filled with spiderman pencils, notepads, bouncy balls and Spiderman hershey bars. I added the Thank You tags and wrapped them all up! I think they turned out fun.

 We had the party at a local jump place that Harrison loves. It's a fun, easy place to have a party. The kids were hot and tired by the time we had cake!

 Harrison & Reid.These 2 have gotten to be big buds at church.

 Harrison & Kaiden.

 Harrison & Jude. Jude is one of his 2 best school friends. I can't say enough about how much we love this family!

 

 Harrison & Lucas.

It was a great day! I'm so thankful for this boy and for all the sweet friends that he has made at school this year along with the church friends he's had all along.