Happy 3rd birthday Arial!

(November 5th, 2017)

I just want to take a minute to thank all our friends and family who were able to come out and help celebrate Arial turning 3 years old – and that we missed those who could only be here in spirit ❤

Matching sister sunflower headbands by Littles Handmade

Twirl dress by Lavender and Mint Boutique

Cupcakes by O How Sweet It Is

Looking back on Arial’s one month photo when she was just a little body, so helpless, so fragile and so amazing to her at 3 years old, so full of sass, brains and personality – its almost breathtaking how time goes by and your once fully dependant child becomes independant in so many ways yet is still needs loving, caring for and direction. It really goes to show how much we need God’s care and direction in our life as parents!! With two little lady’s needing my love and attention now, sometimes I don’t get to respond to Arial’s needs as quickly as I used to or stop and do as many spontanious activities like we could so I have to work extra hard to make time for her and pay attention to her needs. That may be why she became very much a Daddy’s girl since Acadia was born – even though the two of them always had a very special bond. Even more so now!

A few of Arial’s favorite things:

We all know she LOVES food, especially meat and when asked what she would like for supper, she responds with “meat” ! She is a little adetureseeker and when spring arrived this year, she was outdoors almost from sun up to sun down – as  long as someone was outside – she was too! She has aomewhat of an addiction to motors just like daddy – she would never let Shawn leave the yard if he was test driving a quad ot dirt bike for resale! She is in awe of nature, from new flower discoveries to all the berries we found around the yard this summer, to the many birds I would educate her on and romping with the dogs. She’s a bit of a water bug like daddy too and more of her artistic bone started to shine this fall when we had to spend more time indoors coloring and creating with playdough. And all girlish dreams came true when she started to wear headbands after watching me dress Acadia up in hers and her once great bow denial has now turned into somewhat of a “I’ll wear this until it bugs me”. Shawn also has to buy double the candy nowadays because he’s got two sets of sweet teeth in the house! And last but not least, she’s beginning to understand who made her and who watches over her and she prays and thanks God for her food like a little adult ❤ ❤

It’s been fun getting to know her and godwilling we’ve got many more years to go!

Every day I am reminded how much attention and loving a toddler needs and in the process you get to know what excites them and makes their eyes light up. For the longest time it was all about Dora the Explorer…until I took Arial to Value Village for her Halloween costume and we started looking for the Little Mermaid dress…and then it started to become all about the Disney princesses. But lets back up to when it was just about Dora and Boots and Boots and Dora!

Arial would jump for joy when it was Dora the Explorer’s turn on Treehouse so I began planning a party around the little Mexican senorita and hit up Pinterest for ideas. I started out with a Mexican fiesta – bright colors, piñata, tacos and cupcakes and from there it turned into a 3-foot Dora piñata, Dora and Boots cut-out, succulent decorated cupcakes, tie die and the taco bar! I blame Pinterest for most of it but also the insanely artistic bone in my body that needs to go big or go home! Thank God I had some help from my friend Tori to start off with creating Dora the piñata as I’ve never done anything remotely paper Mache-like in my life, and then Shawn cut out the plywood face holes and sanded the wood down and my mom helped string many a tissue paper tassel!

Just to give you an idea of the kind of work it takes to build a 3-foot Dora piñata from scratch: It took 6 nights at approximately 3 hours a night to cut out the cardboard, staple her together to form a structure, cut the newspaper strips for paper Mache (and make the half and half water/flour with salt so it doesn’t start to mold) and layer first the head and the body separately (up to 3 layers), fill with candy once dry and hard as a brick, then attach the head and body and construct some more, cut the tissue paper for her body and work from toe to head lining her with glue and tissue strips – last but not least – her eyes, nose and mouth! Needless to say, she was quite the undertaking! You have been forewarned on attempting this project! I will also say how completely proud I am of her (after fixing a slight wardrobe malfunction) and we call her Lego Dora ❤ Arial was IN LOVE!

Decorating was on a much smaller scale – though I may have worked myself sick the night before the party to get everything just right – Shawn even beat me to bed! But my sickness passed and all I could think of was seeing the look on Arial’s face when she woke up in the morning and we brought her out to see her birthday party surprise!

I don’t think I’ll soon forget (I don’t think ever!) the light in her eyes when we showed her around the next morning, from her gigantic number 3 balloon, to her Dora piñata and all the fun decor. Nor will I forget how she kept telling me over and over how much she loved everything and what a good job I did ❤ ❤ ❤

But as everyone who came to help celebrate, they also know how sick our precious girl was. We had been fighting cold sores all week and winning but the day of her party, our birthday girl started to loose her appetite and not long into the day she was getting fevers. It was hard. But to this day she only remembers the fun and happy parts of her party and still talks about how all her friends came for her big day. And that’s really all we could ask for! She started getting her appetite back the next day and thank God we got our ball of energy back so quickly!

From the little ones blowing like crazy on the party horns, to lots of fun with the tie die, filling our faces with tacos and hammering down on Dora the piñata (I couldn’t make myself swing the broom at all and managed to salvage her face) to all the thoughtful gifts – thank you from the bottom of our hearts for making Arial feel so loved even though she felt so ill.

I grew up with birthday’s being a big deal, and I really can’t help making just as big a deal for our girls! Thank God our little lady’s birthdays are 6 months apart because April will be around the corner in no time!

❤ ❤ ❤

November 7th, 2017

(the day Arial turned 3 years old!)

We woke up to cupcakes for breakfast, matching tie die T-shirts and an Olive and Papaya handcrafted wooden camera for Arial’s birthday present from us! We love you, Arial!