Three times three!

 

We are the proud parents of three three-year-olds!  (Well, we have been for 5 days now, but I'm behind on blogging, I guess!)  The kids each picked out their own birthday cake this year.  Theresa picked out a purple princess cake, Lillian picked out a Thomas the Train cake with red frosting, and Elliott picked out a blue Thomas the train cake.  We had to be careful to explain that the cakes wouldn't be ready on the same day we picked them out.  Last weekend we picked out the cake, and we finally got the cakes yesterday for their birthday party.  That is a long time to wait for a three-year-old! 

 

Since this is the birthday post, I thought I would include some of their likes/dislikes and talents.  I'll start with Theresa.  She likes anything girly; she fancies herself a princess ever since Halloween when she dressed as one.  She likes eating chicken and memorizing books.  Really!  She has several books (including Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?) that she can "read."  She likes the color purple, especially her "purple castle underwear" which she eagerly waits to be laundered.  She even knows they go in the dark load of laundry and sometimes asks, "Mommy, you doing the dark load now?"  She likes shopping with me and is really good at playing Memory.  She dislikes being last and will cry if she is the last to be cleaned up and excused from the table.  She dislikes naps, but she will read books and play with her dolls in her bed for the obligatory hour.  She hates not to match--tears sometimes fall if I just grab a random barrette to put in her hair.  She'll wail something like, "Mama, it no match!  There's no yellow in my shirt!"  Theresa's special talent, I think, is her attention span.  She is our only child who will sit and do a quiet activity for up to 30 or more minutes at a time. 

 

Lillian still loves noodles.  Lillian really likes playing Hi-Ho-Cherry-O even though that game may be the death of my patience...why I ever thought it was a good idea to buy that game is unfathomable to me now.  She still likes Elmo, but Thomas the Train may have earned the top spot now.  Lillian enjoys testing boundaries and enjoys doing the opposite of what I ask just to see what will happen.  She knows it bugs me when she puts on her pajama pants backwards....so she does.  She has a favorite pink hair bow that she insists on wearing every day; she doesn't care whether it matches as Theresa does.  She likes her blankies and her thumb still.  She has a routine of sucking her thumb and then wiping it off on her blanket when she stops.  If I grab her blanket away from her too fast, she'll cry that her thumb is wet and she doesn't have her blankie to wipe it off.  I told her yesterday that three-year-olds can still suck their thumb, but she'll have to stop by the time she's four.  (Will that work, I wonder?)  Lillian's special talent is pedaling on the trike.  She is the best at pedaling of the three.  I am so excited for spring when we can go pedal around the path at the park by our house! 

 

Elliott still likes vacuuming.  He also likes sweeping the garage a lot.  He can even put the dirt in a dustpan and throw it away--he actually gets real work done.  He hasn't learned to pedal his trike, because every time we go to the garage to practice, he sweeps instead.  He also loves shoveling, and he is still a Daddy's boy.  He loves for Daddy to "stay home and eat pancakes with Elliott."  Elliott also really likes my banana bread, and I find it so gratifying to see such a skinny guy enjoy my banana bread so much!  He likes to stall at bedtime and knows he can by offering another kiss.   (Would I ever say no to that?!)  Elliott's special talent is talking our ear off!  I CANNOT watch TV with that child...he sits on my lap and constantly chatters about what he sees on TV.  He is also really good at getting the rest of us to do everything for him.  His sisters are quite pleased with themselves when they dress themselves, etc.  Not Elliott, he'll wait forever for us to help him get his shoes off and on, etc.  Sometimes his sisters even help him when I'm not able to.