Erica Turns 3

Usually I start these birthday posts with something like, "I can't believe my baby is 3!" Well not today. I can believe Erica is three. She talks and talks and asks questions and understands everything we say so well that she has seemed three for quite awhile. It's so strange that she was only saying three words at 18 months. Her vocabulary took off Christmas of last year. I like to watch strangers' faces when they ask her questions; there are always a lot of words coming out of a little body.

Her birthday was Sunday so on Saturday we took her to Brick Oven. I didn't take any pictures but I wish I had a photo of her when the servers sang happy birthday. She mostly just ignored them.

Sunday morning she was up at 7 but waited patiently until 8:30 when I woke up (James stays up late so I do too).

She got a Margaret stuffed animal.

I write my kids a book every year on their birthday until they are 5. This year I recreated her favorite book Find the Teddy by taking pictures of her teddy and putting it into an album. She loved it.

She also got a puppy notebook, a flashlight, umbrella, pink plate, pink water bottle and more tracks for her train set.

She got lots of food including Sour Patch Watermelons which was the only thing she asked for.

A couple of months ago I had Erica look through my cake decorating board on Pinterest to pick out a cake for me to make for her. But for weeks she had set her mind on having pink sugar cookies instead of cake. Then on Saturday I asked her if she wanted to help me make the cookie dough and her answer, "Actually, I want cake. I want cake like Maddie" (She had gone to my nieces birthday party the night before.)I had Justin ask her a little while later if she was excited about cookies and she told him too she wanted cake. Allrighty. So after I got an idea of what Maddie's cake looked like, I made her this.

She wanted a pink cake with sprinkles and that's what she got. She even got to dump the sprinkles on.

If I had time to plan, I would have made her the owl cake I've had in mind since her 2nd birthday. Maybe next year. She took Dora fruit snacks to share with her nursery class at church. Then after church she put in the candles.

She's showing how old she is.

And then we had Justin's parents and brothers over for cake and to watch the superbowl. We had meatballs and mashed potatoes, as requested by the birthday girl. She was mostly excited for the birthday hats. They were "the best thing."

Here are a few pictures we took this morning in her new shirt from Nana.

She makes this face when she is skeptical of what you're saying.

And she was done.

And this was her complete outfit. I will give in to just about any pants request when it comes to taking their birthday picture since it won't show and I wanted to remember this lovely combination. Yes, those are socks with her sandals.

Here's another of my favorite outfits. I just hope people at the store know she dresses herself, not me. I like that she had the common sense to pull her socks up to meet her capri leggings. It is February.

And here's a little sampling of her writing. She is practicing her E's and H's and O's.

Here's her birthday interview.