Sassy girl got a new haircut

Emily loves to go to the "hair salon" to get her hair cut. We LOVE Sweet & Sassy. They do such a great job, and she feels like royalty when she gets her hair cut there. Here she is admiring her new do...

This girl LOVES purple...can you tell?

What Emily is up to these days...

This post is purely for us to look back on in a few years and remember exactly what it was like when Emily was three.

For the past few months, Emily had been obsessed with letters and numbers. It started with her name - she LOVES to spell her name. Then she started to recognize letters from her name in other words and would get excited that they shared letters with her name. After that, Emily would ask us to spell EVERYTHING. Now she has moved on to letter sounds. She frequently asks us to spell words, but she wants to guess the first letter based on the sound. I am truly blown away by this! She is learning so much at her school, and it always takes me by surprise. Like the time she started singing her colors in Spanish. I thought she might just know the song, but she actually knew the colors. Recently we were at our favorite Mexican restaurant and she wanted a purple balloon. I told her she had to ask for it using the Spanish word for purple and she did! Smart girl!

Emily is also very into pretend play. She loves to dress up like a princess, host tea  parties, or give us a check-up using her doctor kit. She likes to pretend that she's at the hair salon when we blow dry her hair at night, or that she's at the dentist when we brush her teeth. Her imagination runs wild, and I am often surprised with the scenarios she comes up with. It is so much fun!

She is also becoming independent when it comes to dressing herself. This has been a few months in the making, but we have finally reached the point where she has to pick out her outfits every day. It's almost always a dress, and almost always some combination of pink and purple (her current favorite colors). Today, she HAD to wear her pink ladybug socks. She said everyone would laugh at them because they are so cute and funny!

Class clown in her ladybug socks

Emily is also starting to love to read. Her favorite books at bedtime are Pinkalicious, Fancy Nancy, Pete the Cat, and her big book of princess stories. I often hear her reading Pinkalicious to herself - she has memorized the whole story. 

This is such a fun and sweet time in her life. She loves to laugh and be silly, and can be so incredibly sweet with her hugs, kisses, and dramatic declarations of how much she loves you. I will definitely miss these days when they are gone!

Daddy's Girl

This sweet picture of my two favorite people just melts my heart!

Daredevil

Looks like someone is comfortable at White Water now!

Southeastern Railway Museum

We took Emily to meet with her friend Jake at the Southeastern Railway Museum. Emily loved riding the small park train, and the large steam train. The small train was her favorite because it was purple :-) She also loved walking through the old train cars and seeing the different compartments (beds, bathrooms, dining areas, etc).

Emily's Soccer Party & School Party

Emily had her party at the indoor soccer field where she has soccer on Saturdays. We all had a blast! Her coach, Coach Justina, was on hand to facilitate the activities on the field, and then we had snacks and cake upstairs. I wish we would have known that the air conditioner wasn't working that day...it was HOT! We still managed to have fun wearing all the kids out :-)

Emily also enjoyed celebrating her actual birthday at school. We brought cupcakes to snack time so everyone could celebrate. Look how happy she was!

Happy 3rd Birthday Emily!

It's hard to believe that it's been three years since we first met our sweet baby girl! She surprises us every day with her intelligence, compassion, creativity, and humor. Happy birthday Emily! We love you :-)