Amber and Dan's Blog: "Fwee"

That means "Three" in Brooke-speak. Even though Brooke has been telling people she's three for a few months, now it's actually true!
A little about our sweet three year old: favorite color (red), favorite food ("noodle soup" aka ramen noodles), favorite friend that's not her sister (Maddie), favorite princess ("I Know You" aka Sleeping Beauty), favorite activity (climbing on dad/coloring/dancing/singing/kissing Candy/whatever Megan is doing)
Brooke can now undress herself and even occasionally dresses herself too (she's great at shirts, pants are tricky). She loves to help in the kitchen (mostly because she thinks helping and snitching are synonymous). We no longer have to wake her up for a potty break when Dan and I go to bed, she stays dry and wakes up on her own if she needs to go. She's still a great napper--usually a 2 1/2 hour nap in the afternoons. She's a little mischievous at bedtimes (stays up playing and bothering Megan for 30 minutes to an hour every night) and until about 3 weeks ago had spent months falling asleep every night with her face pressed to the crack under the bedroom door.
She's got a tender little heart and get the most heartbroken when Megan tells her (in Brooke's words): Megan say she not being my "bess fwen" (best friend). She also gets sad anytime we make her put her beloved pale purple blankie on her bed. Taking her blankie away is our most effective discipline for Brooke right now. Brooke is a snuggler when she gets tired. She still sucks her thumb but we're trying to convince her that three year olds don't do that...so far she's not sold. She is usually very sweet, but boy has she found a pretty gnarly squealing scream when things aren't going her way. We're working on toning that down.
She LOVES nursery. She LOVES swimming and is able to swim about 2/3 of a length of the pool by herself. She learned to take breaths this summer and can even roll over to back float if she gets tired while swimming. Megan is still her best friend and playmate--they have such a good time playing together all day long. Their current favorite is to play "neighbor" where they grab their dolls and set up adjacent forts and constantly yell back and forth "Hey Neighbor!". Brooke loves her Daddy and as soon as he walks in the door she wants to climb on him, play hide and seek, and read books with him. Brooke has a good singing voice and can learn phrases from songs really quickly. She's happily anticipating her first year of joy school to start at the end of August. She loves having a little sister and is constantly trying to pick Candy up (not my favorite), kiss her (my favorite), and enforce all sorts of rules on her (not Candy's favorite).
Overall--we love our little Brookie-boo! She brings such joy and laughter into our family.
We had a great birthday with Brookie. She didn't want anything for breakfast except cereal (takes after me in that way), loved her spaghettio lunch, and wanted pizza for her party at dinnertime. Brooke and Megan are constantly planning their birthday parties and for months now Brooke has been telling us all about her "I Know You" party. Hopefully we delivered! I asked her what friends she wanted there and she wanted Maddie and Megan (Maddie's sister)--so since our night for babysitting swap was Brooke's birthday, I just made that her party too.
We hung balloons from streamers, had princess music playing to dance to, gave each girl a crown, painted "I Know You" pictures, read a princess book, and then ate pizza and "I Know You" cupcakes. After that we watched--gasp--"I Know You"! (*I wouldn't let Brooke watch it other days this week because I kept telling her she could watch it at her party--but don't worry, she still asked for it every day)

Our 3 year old enjoying lunch on her birthday...

Getting started! Princess hats for everyone...except our buddy Drew (I offered, he declined). He came to hang out with us for 2 days while his parents flew out for our friend's funeral. Lucky man to get to attend a full fledged "I Know You" party.

Painting...

The "I Know You" cake--see the sleeping beauty figurine (and her owl friend)? We have 2 of those dolls and Brooke asked later why they weren't being best friends. I told her the other one was tired and took a nap instead.