caroline's birthday morning

caroline's birthday started bright and early in her room on saturday as we sang to her and let her blow out the candle on her birthday muffin. she wasn't completely awake when she tried to blow out the candle, and after about 5 attempts, ethan finally helped her out. :) afterwards, caroline ran into the kitchen to eat her muffin and saw her presents waiting for her on the table. and the birthday girl got a little bashful! (these next couple of pictures are not that great quality, but i love her expressions!)




and look how that bashfulness quickly disappeared!


this birthday girl is quite the meticulous present opener. (and meticulous is NOT the word i would usually choose to describe my caroline!) evvvvery single piece of paper and tape had to be removed from each present before she would even look at it to see what it was. seriously. she wouldn't even glance at the present that was 99.5% opened. gotta get all the paper off. yeah, real cute. now imagine her in 80 years at christmas!!! her grandchildren will definitely be putting their presents in bags! :) she was actually very serious through the whole present-unwrapping ordeal. she hardly smiled at all as she worked on opening each gift. good thing there were only 4 presents from us!


well, there's a smile! she has loved playing with counting bears so much that we got her a set of counting animals. she has had a ball organizing the cats and the turtles and their friends. and i love that she has no idea that this is a "small" present.


"may you please take the tape off this present!?" that's right. she would not proceed with unwrapping this one until the tape that held on the (reused) bow was removed. i really wish she would be this picky about her room!


once caroline got the present all unwrapped, she was thrilled with her fish puzzle! to go with her fish party! this is a really beautiful puzzle.


after opening her gifts from us, caroline was ready to eat her birthday muffin... as we usually do, we lit the candle again to sing happy birthday again. this time, she did just fine blowing out the candle. her contented grin was worth burning my finger on the stove as i made these muffins after midnight the night before!



here's my big girl.



sour muffin?! i promise they were good!



see!? i told you they were good!


the birthday girl asked for one more muffin. (no i do not usually let her get this close to the stove. on or off. and for the record, it was off.)


and she got it all by herself. 'cause she's three now! she doesn't realize that she could have done that the day before at two years old. :)


so that was the beginning of a very busy birthday day! at the end of the day, she asked, "am i still fwee (three)?" well, it wasn't that long of a day!

be back soon to take you under the sea!