Cambree is 3!

My little girl is 3 today. And I'm actually not emotional about it. I think maybe it's because I've been rounding her age up to 3 in my head for the last few months, so I'm already used to the idea. Whatever it is, I don't want her to grow up too quickly, but I'm pretty excited about the little person she is becoming :-)

Don't get me wrong, I love babies. I love newborns, crawlers, toddlers, all those guys. And I really thought I would be sad that Cambree is getting older. But I'm loving the stage she is in right now. She still loves to snuggle, and she is light enough that I can easily carry her around. But she is just such a person now, and I love the person she is. I love that we are to the point where we can carry on conversations. I mean, real conversations. I love to see her caring spirit expressed. She is such a comforter. If Griffin is upset, she will try to calm him down. When I taught her Wednesday night class at church a few months ago, a little boy was upset about being in class without his momma, and she kept going over and trying to engage him and make him feel better. She just has such a sweet  heart!

I love that she really remembers things now, and I love that she wants to learn things to remember. She is very inquisitive about everything. Some of her questions keep this momma on her toes! (For instance: Who is God? Where is Jesus? She asks these fairly frequently, which I take to mean she is not satisfied with my answers. Any suggestions on how to answer those for a 3 year old?) Anyway, back to her learning. She will just sit and look at books, absorbing the information in the pictures. Speaking of books, it's pretty cool that we can read longer books now. She will sit and listen to fairly long picture books, even nonfiction ones. I love it!

Okay, okay, I know it seems like I'm just gushing on and on about her, but, well, she's my little girl and I love her. She's definitely not perfect, but I'm just enjoying watching her grow! Now on to the more light-hearted section of the post...

Funny tidbits:
*Momma, can you drop me off at the high school? (She asks me to do this any time we drive by.)
*McDonald's! We're going to McDonald's! (She screamed this today when she found out we were all going to McDonald's for her birthday lunch. Doesn't really care that much about the food, but they have a playground!)
*The other day she was eating a cookie. Griffin saw it and wanted it, so I asked her to go get him one from the kitchen. She walked back in with her cookie, which was 3/4 of the way gone and a big, uneaten cookie. She tried to hand Griffin her tiny cookie remnant with the explanation, "Momma, I'm gonna switch cookies with Griffin." Good try, sweetie!
*She still loves the letter B. Fun B words include B-boon (balloon), B-gilla (gorilla), B-quarium (aquarium), and B-cation (vacation). There are several others, but I can't think of them right now.
*She loves to play doctor right now. She and Aiden played doctor by measuring each other (feet, backs, hands, etc.) with a measuring tape. Sunday night at small group she was playing doctor with her friends by just giving shots and taking temperatures. Guess she'll be ready for her check-up next week!

To celebrate her birthday today, we went to McDonald's for lunch with several of her friends. She had a blast! My sister and her kiddos stopped by this afternoon for a quick visit. Then tonight mom and Bob came over, and we had homemade pizza and cupcakes for dessert. She got her presents from Ed and me and mom tonight. She seemed to love everything, but her favorite is definitely the castle. After she was done opening presents, she asked me to set the castle up on her art table and sat and played with it for a good 30 minutes. It's a fitting gift for her at this stage, because she is more and more into pretend all the time. I think she'll be able to make up some great stories using the castle as a background :-) Here are some pictures of the festivities today.

Checking out her new castle.

Abbie Grace and Cambree

From what I could tell, Cambree was a monster who was going to get Aiden, Abbie Grace, Micah, and Izzy.

Lauren, Bobby, Cambree, and Abbie Grace

Izzy, (not feeling photogenic Micah), Kelly, and Cambree

Trying to figure out her new softball glove