How Can It Be...Our Baby Girl Turns 3!!!

Today is Lily's 3rd birthday! I can't believe it. Seriously. Where is the time going? Doesn't it seem like only yesterday we were celebrating with Lilypalooza?? What about Lilypalooza 2??? Can someone please show me how to get time to slow down...at least a little?!?

Okay, okay. Enough of that! I need to live in the moment...right? And today was filled with lots of great moments!

This morning when Lily woke up I said, "Happy Birthday!" and Lily asked, "Am I 3 now?" When I answered, "Yes!" You could just see the sparkle in her eye! I can't be sure, but I think Lily's feet barely touched the ground from the moment she woke up until she collapsed into bed.

We had a lot of fun celebrating Lily's big day. First, we went to get Lily a big girl hair cut. Well, not really. It was more like a trim...but everything today was "because I'm a big girl...."



After Lily's hair cut we stopped at the Farmer's Market and did a little shopping. Don't tell anyone but Lily got a chocolate chip cookie and ate it before lunch! Craziness!! The things you do to celebrate a big girl's birthday.

Then we met Dad Dad, Mary Beth, Patti, Christina, and Hailey for lunch. Lily was so excited about her big day she could barely eat her lunch. Our girl has a hearty appetite so this is really saying something!! Maybe that chocolate chip cookie wasn't such a good idea.



After lunch Katie and Paul wanted to take Lily out for ice cream. Oddly enough Lily somehow managed to find her appetite again. As the pictures below will prove Lily had a finger-licking good time!



When Tony got home the birthday celebration continued...including giving Lily her birthday present - a new bicycle. Lily loved it and Tony and I just couldn't believe how well she did on it.



Only one thing fell short of Lily's birthday extravaganza expectations...the Chocolate Milk. Chocolate Milk you ask. Yup. Several weeks ago Lily asked me if she could have chocolate milk for her birthday. Lily's never had chocolate milk before and had never mentioned it before. I was a little surprised when she asked and even more surprised when she wanted to wait until her birthday! So tonight I fixed her a glass of chocolate milk to have with her birthday cake. I even went kind of heavy on the Hershey's syrup since it's her birthday and all. I'm a good mom like that. Anyway, she took 2 sips of it and said in a kind of disappointed voice, "This is chocolate milk?" I'm not sure exactly what she expected, but I know it wasn't what she got!



I had planned to bake Lily a chocolate cake last night after she went to bed. Lily loves to help me in the kitchen, but I wanted to make this cake without my little assistant as a little bit of a surprise for her. What I didn't plan for was our power to go out last night a little before 8 pm and stay out until 3:41 am!! There was no time in today's schedule for cake baking so a store bought ice cream cake had to do. Lily didn't seem to mind.

We had such a fun day today and the celebration will continue on Saturday with Lilypalooza 3!