Ashley's 3rd Birthday

Last Monday, Ashley celebrated her 3rd Birthday. We were fortunate to have Danny home with us that day. We enjoyed a fun day together. Here is Ashley showing off her newest accomplishment (holding up 3 fingers, if you couldn't tell).

Alyssa wanted to get in the picture when she saw me snapping shots of Ashley. I love when they put their arms around each other.

Originally, I had planned to have a friend party for Ashley sometime during the week of her birthday at McDonald's and to save her actual birthday for family stuff. However, when I started thinking about who we should invite, I could only think of one friend that she would really want to come. As a result, I changed my plan and decided that we would just invite the one friend to join us at Chuck E. Cheese's, one of Ashley's favorite places to go. The three kids had a blast together.

Here are Ashley and Haydn enjoying a roller coaster ride. I love how Ashley has her hands up like it is a real roller coaster and Haydn is holding on tight to his seat.
This was a favorite ride for the kids and the parents. The kid loved it because they got to go on it all together. The parents loved it because it only cost us one token for all three of them.
After the tokens ran out, we let them pick out some prizes with the tickets that they had won.
That afternoon, we let Ashley open up all of her presents. She loved being able to open presents again. We made chicken nuggets for dinner (one of Ashley's favorite things to eat) and then had cupcakes and ice cream after dinner.

Ashley is so much fun to have as part of our family. There is never a dull moment with her. She has so much energy and never stops moving. Since she turned three after the first of the year she gets to stay in the nursery at church for one more year. She is tall for her age and towers over all of the other kids in there. Some of her favorite things are anything Dora, the Cat in the Hat, her stuffed Puppy, her baby, and her blanket (she has quite the collection of animals that she insists on carrying around with her everywhere she goes. She calls them her "friends").

We refer to her as our lunch girl because she eats most lunch foods very well, but doesn't hardly eat breakfast or dinner. We have had so much fun watching Ashley grow and learn new things these past three years and we look forward to many more years of fun with her as part of our family. We love you Ashley!