Happy 3rd Birthday, Braelynn!

I’m a bit at a loss for words, as today is Braelynn’s 3rd birthday. What? How is that even possible? Wasn’t she just born, like, yesterday?

So, today we celebrated. We celebrated 3 whole years of this little ray of sunshine in our lives. We celebrated that we’ve survived 3 whole years as parents. We celebrated all the good from the last 3 years, and tried to laugh at all the bad. We celebrated who our little girl is today and who she will become tomorrow.

And of course, what could the day be without memorializing it with some photos? Since Braelynn has a January birthday, I’ve just always been okay with the fact that super fun “birthday photos” are kind of out of the equation (and why I am sure to dedicate time during the summer for those). But, I couldn’t resist opening all of the blinds in her room and moving all of her stuffed animals to the side, so we could take a few photos this morning.

Here are a few fun facts about Braelynn and some of her latest accomplishments (that way, just in case you haven’t seen her lately, you can at least have a mental picture of who she is):

• She is full-to-the-brim with energy. It is totally normal & common to find her jumping from our ottoman to the couch to the floor and dashing all over the place. She loves to run (this cold winter season is killing us). Thankfully, our first floor is a giant circle, as she loves to do laps from the living room, to the kitchen, to the dining room, to the living room. She figured out that she can jump down the stairs (and not just from the bottom step, but from 2 and sometimes 3 steps up)! She is constantly giggling and just running around.
• She has quite the collection of figures – princess figures, animal figures, Daniel Tiger figures, Mickey Mouse figures – and they are some of her favorite toys. She also has a dollhouse style castle & will sit for hours playing with her figures & her castle. We love to just sit & listen to her. She talks in different voices, her characters hold conversations, they sing, eat, go swimming, sleep – it’s all quite hilarious. She has such a vivid imagination!
• Speaking of her imagination – she has been quite into all-things-princess lately. She has a few dress-up dresses, and we gave her a whole set of tiaras, wands, necklaces, bracelets, and high-heel-shoes for Christmas. It’s just about a daily occurrence that she dresses up (think ALL the accessories), and trots around the house.
• Along the same princess-line: Abby has earned a new title: “Abby-Dragon”. Braelynn has a pop-up princess castle & after she gets all dressed up, she loves to play in her castle & hide from “Abby-Dragon”!
• Daniel Tiger remains one of her favorite tv shows – and recently I’ve heard her singing some of the little jingles from the episodes! It is so darn cute! She also loves to watch Sarah & Duck (a BBC show, I’m waiting for the day Braelynn starts speaking in a Brittish accent from watching it!), and the Amazon Prime show based off the If You Give A Mouse A Cookie book. Her favorite movie is The Secret Life of Pets, but Frozen & Cinderella are close contenders. She would sit & watch tv all day long if we let her (I mean, what little kid wouldn’t?).
• She LOVES watching roller coaster videos with Daddy. She comments on a daily basis that she wants to grow bigger like Daddy so she can go ride roller coasters with him (indoctrinated much?).
• The obsession with stuffed animals continues. She has never met a fluffy that she doesn’t love. Needless to say, we have to carefully steer clear of the stuffed animals in the store, or else she must stop & hug (and kiss) them all. She has a few very loved fluffies (she calls them her “babies”), but there isn’t really one particular one that she loves more than others. She’s an equal-opportunity-stuffed-animal-lover.
• On that same note: her obsession with washcloths remains strong as well. We used to think it was just any washcloth that she’d love, but we discovered a few months ago that it’s the black ones: those are the magic. She carries a black washcloth almost everywhere we go: the grocery store, church, Grandma’s house, etc. And she simply must have it to sleep. Once upon a time, we only had 2 or 3 of these specific black washcloths, and one night at bedtime, we couldn’t find any. Needless to say, that was a rough night. Thankfully, we were able to find the same ones at WalMart, and we stocked up.
• Braelynn loves all of her Aunts & Uncles, but Auntie Ruby is still number one. Braelynn asks to see her every single day.
• Potty training has definitely been an adventure over the last year. We started the potty training process shortly after her 2nd birthday & it surprisingly went really well. She seemed to really get it & went strong for about a month. Then, we went on vacation to Texas and stuck her in pull-ups for most of our trip. We knew that we would be on the airplane, in & out of the car, and on-the-go, so we thought that would be easiest (especially since she still wasn’t 100% there yet). It was the worst mistake ever. We lost all momentum that week & it literally took us all summer to get back on track. It was rough. Thankfully, over the last 2 months, it seems to have clicked again, and I’d say we’re about 90% potty trained (meaning, she still has an accident every once in a while, but most days, she successfully makes it to the potty).
• Sleeping all night in her own bed has been another major uphill battle this year. It’s funny – I read the post I did last year on her birthday & literally laughed out loud – I thought we were making progress then when in reality, we weren’t even close. We finally talked to a sleep consultant about 2 weeks ago, and taking her advice, we dove head-first into the battle that is training Braelynn to sleep, all night long, in her own bed. It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve seen tremendous success & it’s been really wonderful to wake up in the morning while she’s still sleeping!
• Braelynn’s personality is definitely developing and it’s so fascinating to see it shining through. She definitely has a comfort zone and outside of that, she is super shy. It’s funny, once I actually thought I had an outgoing child – but nope – she’s very shy (just like I was when I was little).
• She is always eating! She finishes her breakfast/lunch/dinner & almost immediately asks for a snack. I guess she’s just growing! She is a really good eater too – she’ll eat just about everything we set in front of her! Cabbage, spinach, asparagus, zucchini, kale, olives – she doesn’t even blink & down it goes. The only things we’ve discovered that she’ll always turn away are onions & tomatoes – it doesn’t stop her from trying them! But then she’ll spit them back out. I think it’s because Derrick & I eat a huge variety of foods and she just does what we do.

There are literally a billion other things I could say, but I’ll stop there. We love her to death & couldn’t imagine what life would be like without her! She definitely adds spice to our days!

Look who snuck into one photo!