At least we had the party on time.

 

 

You may not believe me, but on my list of things to do since January 5th has been to download these pictures and do a blog post about Mara's 3rd birthday party.  Not kidding.  Every single day, my beloved Erin Condren planner has said, "Mara's post".  And every day there have been other things that have required my attention before this.  Thankfully, with an early afternoon home due to snow, I'm catching up a bit.  And so...I give you a very belated post about our sweet baby and how we celebrated her entrance into being three.

 

If you've spent more than 5 minutes with Mara, you know that this is a little girl who LOVES babies.  Real babies, pretend babies, it doesn't seem to matter.  She likes to hold them, feed them, dress them, walk them in her stroller, sing to them, put them to sleep and wake them back up again.  She has her most favorite "purple baby", and about a hundred other babies that she plays with daily.  I even try to take some of the less favored ones to the basement from time to time, but she realizes they are missing and ends up going to look for them.  Every time this happens, I pretend to have no idea how they got down there.  So far, she believes me. 

 

So we decided that it would be fun to have a baby themed birthday party for her.  All of the kids were encouraged to bring their babies with them, and they all seemed to have a wonderful time playing with them.  There were lots of American Girls on the scene, and everyone from age 11 all the way down to 2 seemed to love playing dolls together.  Quite frankly, if I had my beloved doll, Victoria, I would have jumped right in with her.

We had lots of yummy snacks, because, let's face it, I need very little in the way of a good excuse to cook things to eat.  And a house full of people certainly qualifies, so I worked on coming up with a menu that would reflect our party theme.  We had "little" smokies, "mini" meatballs, and a lot of the other normal party favorites.  It was a bit of a dip-a-palooza because I went a little wild on dips of all different varieties-- banana pudding dip with "mini" Nilla wafers, caramel dip for apple slices, Neen's yummy salsa dip with nothing mini or baby related, but just for the simple fact that the bowl is always licked clean at every party we have.  We had mini cups of fruit salad and veggie shooters.  And all of the kids ate their goodies using little cocktail sized spoons and  forks (baby sized).  It was pretty cute...if I do say so myself.  And even more critical than cute was that it was yummy.

 

The kids were so excited to get to play with Brooke and Hayden, and the Mowrys. Thank goodness for Cooper to rescue Joshua from all of the girls.

 

These two together just about melt me.  I swear...if they were any cuter together, I wouldn't know what to do.

 

The kids decorated little doll sized t-shirts for their babies.  It was a project that worked a lot  better in my mind than it did in reality.  The fabric markers didn't exactly want to move on the fabric, so I think the girls were a bit frustrated.  But it occupied them for a little while, anyway.

 

We had to remove the cute baby doll from the top of the cake in order not to burn down the house, but Mara loved her cake.  The little baby doll had a small cake just like the big one.  The kids gobbled up the cake just like usual.  And thankfully, almost all of the cake was eaten so that I wasn't tempted to completely wreck my diet with irreparable consequences.  

 

And just look at this crew.  I took about 80 pictures like this, and not one of them has all six of the girls looking in the same direction and smiling.  And so I give you this one.  I never claimed to be a photographer.

 

In the end, we had a very happy little girl, and a great afternoon to spend with our family and friends.  I still can't quite believe that Mara can really be three--- that is, until she has a complete temper tantrum that can ONLY come from a three year old.  But it doesn't seem possible that it has  been three years since she was born.  In some ways, though, I can't remember what life was like before her.  No doubt, she has completed our family in a way that only she could.  She pushes me, stretches me, challenges me in ways the other kids never have.  She frustrates me, frazzles me, and melts my heart at the same time.  I can't explain it any other way than to say that she is everything I never knew I needed--- but is a true and cherished gift from God.  I only pray that we can parent her in the way that she needs to be parented in order to grow into the person she was born to be.