Phoebe is THREE!

Phoebe finally got to open her presents on Saturday morning. But first we had to finish folding the clean laundry, which she was excited about because sitting in laundry baskets is one of her favourite activities:

Here she is opening her present from Auntie K:

It's a little (big?) water doodle mat that reveals the colourful under layer when wet but dries to be white again after a while. We'll try it tomorrow while the kids are doing their lessons to see if it keeps her entertained.

And here she is opening the present the family got her:

It's a mommy dog with four little puppies (they have magnetic noses, so they can "latch" on to feed). 

Here's a little video of her proclaiming how she loves her puppies:

She sounds a little whiney in the video, but that's because she's using her "baby puppy" voice (which admittedly is whiney). So that's not really her saying, "That's my spot!" That's her pretending the baby puppy is saying, "That's my spot!" She doesn't always talk in quite a whiney tone.

In the afternoon, Grandpa and Darla arrived with another puppy for Phoebe. This one is white and fluffy like Titus (Darla's dog) and Phoebe just loves him, too! She could never have enough puppies, so if you were planning on getting her a puppy for Christmas or anything, do not fret—there is room in her heart for so many puppies.

We watched 101 Dalmatians as a family on Friday night and Phoebe thought the premise of the film was fantastic. Winding up with 101 puppies? Ten out of ten experience. Two thumbs way, way up. 

She had requested a pumpkin puppy cake. Rachel baked the cake but left the decorating for Miriam to do and Miriam was completely unsure of what to do herself until we finished 101 Dalmatians—and then she knew!

Here's Phoebe (holding Titus) and Alexander sitting on Darla's lap:

There's an okay picture of everyone smiling!

Phoebe was so excited to turn off the lights so we could sing to her in the dark (she turned off the lights before we'd even lighted the candles and for a split second we thought the power had gone out)!

She tried valiantly to blow out the candles, but after several attempts had only managed to blow out one of the three candles on her cake (she must have bad aim or something)...so we let Alexander help her.

Here he is getting ready to help her before she'd even tried (we stopped him):

Here she is still trying to extinguish the last flame(s):

And here's Alexander gearing up to help her for real:

It was so much fun celebrating this sweet little three-year-old! 

And that wraps up birthday season at our house! We're off until next May!

Good thing we only have one more Linger Longer before our church schedule changes. Hilariously, we've managed to bring several half birthday cakes to Linger Longers this fall.

Rachel made a German Chocolate cake for Darla in September, which our household ate half of. And then we took the rest of the cake to the Linger Longer where various ward members polished it off. 

And then Alexander's (lemon) cake...well...we didn't actually take that to a Linger Longer because those are typically the last Sunday of the month. But we also couldn't finish the whole cake, so Rachel mashed it up and made cake balls out of it and stuck them in the freezer until the next Linger Longer.

Miriam's birthday was at the end of October, though, so we ended up taking half of her (fun-fetti) birthday cake to the Linger Longer, where it was quickly finished.

And then Phoebe's birthday shouldn't have aligned with the Linger Longer, but they switched the date to this week because we have Stake Conference at the end of the month, so we brought half of Phoebe's birthday cake to the Linger Longer. 

It's been a very convenient way to get rid of birthday cake!

As a(nother) side note: our bishopric was rearranged today, so the stake president came to singing time in primary, which was a little intimidating...but I broke out all the bells and whistles (quite literally) so I think it went okay in spite of being in a little bit of dental agony (did I mention I got braces on Friday—a lot of stuff has been happening around here). To clarify, the bells and whistles were the plan all along...it just so happened that the stake president was there.

I brought all our ukuleles (we have, um, seven) and our handbells and divided the primary in half, with one side of the room playing a C chord and the other playing an F chord on the ukuleles (or the C and F bells) as we sang the song Christmas Bells. The kids who didn't have either instrument got regular ol' jingle bells. It was a bit chaotic, but a bit...successful. 

I think they'll be in great shape by the time we perform it next month (for the stake Christmas musical fireside). 

And we broke out the ribbon wands as well to make up some actions for the chorus of Star Bright (which we sing in English, Spanish, and Korean). The kids remembered the words from last time (thank you, natural back, Cool Joe) and were excited to get to sing it again!