Maya is THREE!!

Maya's birthday party was yesterday, ON her 3rd birthday. I don't have extremely high housecleaning standards by any means, but for some reason, I felt compelled to have the entire house cleaned for a bunch of 3 year olds. And it was a pool party, for goodness sakes! They were outside most of the time anyway! But it was all worth it. House was clean, and kids had a good time. And I made this awesome Cinderella cake for my baby girl. I felt bad last year because Maya had 3 parties, and I ordered the same Nemo cake from the grocery store for all 3 parties.... what a cop-out when I know how to decorate cakes. So I was determined to make it this year, even though I just accepted a promotion at work, and even though we had a meeting Friday that I couldn't miss, so I had to work a full day the day before the party. All in all, I was very pleased with the turnout, and Maya had a grand time!!!

Yes, there is a little 'glass' slipper on the bottom step, but it's hard to see:


This was early in the morning, when we let her open our gift (a kid-friendly digital camera ... she LOVES to take pics with my digital camera), and she was pretty grumpy in the morning. But I managed to get a smile out of her anyway...

This was after swimming, when all the kids were good and hungry and ready for ice cream and cake:
Back to the morning hours, when she opened her camera. She was mesmerized:
A good friend of mine came to the party and I assigned to her the role of official party photographer, as I learned the last 2 years that I just don't have time to take pictures! So I'll post more whenever I receive her copy of pictures.

And to all of my blogger friends, I apologize most sincerely for not reading and posting comments on your blogs lately .... I truly have not had an hour to myself for several weeks now. I don't think I went to bed before midnight in the last 2 weeks, and I honestly fell asleep just now waiting for my pics to load! This is one tired mama, and I'm heading to bed as soon as I finish here. But it was worth every single second of effort. I made my baby smile with her cake, and she had a very good time at her party. I don't care a fig if she knows how much effort I put into her party or not, but I do care that she enjoys her birthday parties and remembers the excitement and joy she had that day. I have a December birthday, and so I can count on one hand the number of birthday parties I actually remember. Far more often, I had birthday gifts wrapped up in Christmas wrapping paper. So when I found out my first baby was to have a summer birthday, I jumped for joy, and knew we would have a blast each and every summer!

Maya has already grown so fast, and I keep staring at her little face trying to memorize how she looks at 3 years old. I know time is going to fly faster and faster, and I just want to enjoy her as she is. She is at such a sweet age, all cuddles and hugs and wanting her mommy one minute, and then fiercely independent with her "I can do it!" attitude the next. Throw in her jealous-of-her-sister moments, and her remaining 'terrible-twos' tantrums, and she is just a mix of sweet and sour, and altogether 100% precious. I can't wait to see where this next year takes her.