My Janey Turned Three

My Jane Elisabeth is three years old.

 She had a princess party.

And she got a new princess dress, which she loved because it's a Cinderella dress.

(All her other princess dresses--which she wears daily--look more like Cinderella's clothes before the fairy godmother showed up.  They're just worn to tatters.)
Also, from time to time, she feels distressed that her princess dresses do not reach the ground.  It's just part of being so tall that none of them do, and it truly makes her sad.  But this dress does reach the ground!  Joy!

 She was so precious that day.  And so excited!

 I didn't end up with pictures of all the decorations, but my goal was that our house looked like a pink bomb went off inside.  We had pink streamers hanging from the ceiling, pink tissue paper flowers, real pink flowers, a pink castle, pink wrapping paper, and so on.

Even a pink princess cake.

Actually, folks, this cake was a pink Cinderella ballerina cake.  Now, there is not a single thing that would suit Janey more.

Janey and me.

(Did I mention that everyone got to wear a crown?)

We played a game called "Sleeping Lions" that I read about in this book, and, let's be honest, it's pretty awesome when you can get a bunch of rowdy preschoolers to play a quiet game.  Next time there might be some rule-tweaking, but hey, it was fun.

The party went well, but the gift opening was crazy.  We do have some friends who don't open gifts at the party, but I want my kids to practice gratitude, and I know the gift givers want to see the child's reaction when they open their gift, so I like to open presents during the party.  But just to make sure everything went well, I took Jane aside in a quiet room and talked to her about opening her gifts: "Jane, the reason we open gifts while people are here is so that you can look everyone in their eyes and say thank you.  Do not forget to thank everyone for the gift they brought.  Look at their eyes when you say thank you."  I really drilled it home, and she was very receptive.  But Noah and another little friend were bringing her gifts before she could finish unwrapping the one before, and it just got way out of hand.  Just like on Christmas Day, she didn't even know what she got before the next one was half unwrapped.  We'll have to figure this out.  I will say, though, that even though she hardly knew what was given or who gave it, she sure did have a lot of joyous fun.

One of our gifts to Jane was a brush.  Y'all, don't miss the significance here.  Jane finally has enough hair that she needs a brush!!!

My Little Lovey.