"It was the best party I ever saw!"

What a big girl~Brooke is "3"! She is such an awesome girl...caring, compassionate, generous, funny, and super smart if I do say so myself. She is really outgoing and such a little chatterbox. I feel kinda bad, but sometimes I have to say, "Please Brooke, let's just have a moment or two of silence!" Her favorite question is..."WHY?" She loves to play outside with sidewalk chalk and ride her scooter, play board games and read with daddy, help Mommy cook dinner, go places with her friends, watch "her shows"(Madeline, Wonder Pets, Little Bill, Diego, Franklin, etc.), and of course she is now 3, so she loves ALL things DORA. She also loves to sing, dance, and play teacher. She is always quizzing me on counting, colors, and the alphabet.
We are still working on nighttime potty training. She is very wet in the AM, but I wet the bed until I was 5 or 6 and had to take medicine to strengthen my bladder, so she may follow in her mama's footsteps on that. Also, she still has trouble putting on and taking off her clothes most of the time. It is probably because I never let her pick it her own outfits or seldom let her dress herself. You all know I am a little controlling in that area. (I will try to work on it, K!)
She has been asking for weeks now, "Are's it my birthday yet?" So when she woke up on Friday morning she could hardly believe it was finally here. She came down and made her own breakfast. (She is surely displaying some major signs of independence!) We all hung around the house for a while and then slowly got ready to head out for the day.
Penn always takes off of work for well appointments and I like them to be on her actual birthday, so...we went to see Dr. Andy at Southlake Pediatrics. Last year, she measured in at 26 pounds and was 33 inches tall. This year Brooke weighs 30 pounds and is 38 inches tall. She moved up from 50th to 75th percentile. Wow! I knew she was growing like a weed but, that's almost 5 inches. She better slow down or at this rate she will be taller than her daddy. ;-)
During her appt., she talked Dr. M into waiting on her shots until Bailey goes back for her 4 month check up. She was pretty convincing and he agreed that she shouldn't get any shots on her birthday. He said that it was pretty much the best 3 year old check up that he could ever remember.(He probably says that to everyone.) She even gave him a great big hug on the way out. I know he loved it! I pray that he too will get to have his own child one day soon! He is such a kind and gentle soul and boy does he love kids!
After the great check up, we headed over to The Cheesecake Factory. Of course it is one of our favorites. Brooke fell asleep on the way, but woke up shortly after we arrived. The topic of conversation throughout dinner was all about what kind of cheesecake would we have. Our food was great and then they brought out the dessert. Some waiters sang "Happy Birthday" to Brooke and brought her a special treat. We all stuffed ourselves.
We headed back to the house to waited for some family and friends to arrive in town for the weekend.
On Saturday, we had a Dora party for Brooke at Pump It Up. I made a "map" of the place and we pretended to go on a Dora style adventure. We were in search of Cakeville. But we warned the children to beware, because Swiper may come along and try to swipe the presents!
We had Dora music playing throughout the place and Brooke danced and played her heart out. Sure enough, Swiper(Mr. Mark) did come and try to swipe the presents. Brooke was quite scared and jumped in Christy's arms for protection. Ella wasn't scared at all and got right in his face and pointed her finger while saying, SWIPER NO SWIPING!" She meant business. She saved the presents from swiper and then we found cakeville.
Brooke loved blowing out the candles. Everybody had some snacks, cake and ice cream and then Brooke passed out the treat bags. (Thanks Christy for all your help with sewing the bags! You are so awesome!)
After the party, we went back home to open presents and count the donations. The guest were asked to bring a $5 donation in lieu of gifts, but some brought presents too. We raised over $150.00 for Children's Hospital and Brooke racked up on all kinds of sweet goodies. Penn wanted to dress up like Swiper since he didn't get to at the party. He is so funny. He was all into it and decided it would be the best way to present the "big" present from Mimi.
After Brooke, Evan and Kirby opened all of the gifts,(this pink laptop was a favorite) I told them that she may have one more present if Swiper didn't get it! Then, Penn crept around the corner with the swiper costume on holding the Dora bike. Brooke let out a scream of horror and jumped in Mimi's lap. She was so distraught that she didn't even want anything to do with the bike. Evan got scared too and they both talked about it for the rest of the weekend!
We all went out to Habanero's for some dinner, but Brooke fell asleep on the way and slept most of the way through. She was so exhausted from the big day. She did finally wake up towards the end of dinner and ate a little something.
After dinner, we headed home to take baths and get ready for bed. Penn actually agreed to let Brooke and Evan bathe together. He is usually so particular about stuff like that. They had the best time.
If the day wasn't adventurous enough already(keep reading)!
As we were all settling in for the night, I went into the master bedroom to change Bailey's diaper and I smelled something burning and then I looked up and saw smoke near the ceiling. I yelled for Penn and started panicking. I wanted to get everyone out of the house before it went up in flames. Kerri and I were both holding our tiny babies while trying to drag our toddlers out the door and Mark was in the frog bathroom taking a shower. We yelled for him to get out and he ran out with a lime green towel wrapped around his waist dripping water the whole way down the stairs.(Too bad I didn't get a pic of that~so funny!) Penn was running around the house with the fire extinguisher trying to identify the cause of the smoke as I was yelling for everyone to run for your life! Evan freaked out and didn't want to go outside and Brooke started to get upset too. Finally, we all calmed down and found the source of the smoke. It was the lamp in the bedroom. The light bulb had caught fire and then went out on its own and that is where the burning smell and the smoke came from. We were relived that it wasn't anything too terrible! It has really made us start thinking about fire safety.
Somehow we finally all got tucked in for the night around 1:00ish and then I woke up at 2:oo yelling to Penn, "I smell smoke~the house is on fire!!!" He said, "NO IT'S NOT~Go back to bed!" And so I tried.
On Sunday morning, we all woke up late and decided to skip church. Our company headed home and we just had a very quiet day at home.
We all had a GREAT birthday weekend!
And if you ask Brooke about her birthday weekend she will say, "It was the best party I ever saw!"