The "best" is HERE!!: Happy 3rd birthday Makenna!

Dear Makenna,

I cannot believe you are already 3! Time has gone by so very fast. You are no longer a toddler and are turning into quite the little girl. You are a sweet, sassy, beautiful, kind, polite, observant, fun-loving little girl. You bring me and your daddy so much joy. We are so very thankful for you and for your little brother that is growing in mommy's tummy. You love to pat mama's belly and randomly put your head on it and say - "Aww, I love you brother" - it is so very sweet and I know you will make such a great big sister. We are still working on picking out a name for him - so far you have contributed "boy" and "brewer" to the list. Ha! Sometimes you ask if we can call him "girl", too.

So, what are you up to these days? Quite a bit!!

You are a busy, busy girl. Your absolute favorite thing to play is pretend with all your figurines. You have Princesses, Minnie & Mickey, Toy Story and Sesame Street characters that you like to role play with. Mommy and Daddy got you the Jake and the Neverland Pirates figurines for your birthday and you played with them every chance you got today. It was so funny to listen to you play with them while I made dinner - "Aargh matey" and "Ahoy" as you acted out different scenes from the show.

You LOVE school and "graduated" to the caterpillar room this summer. They only moved 2 kids from the Honeybees to the Caterpillars which I think has you a little sad since you don't see all your old friends in class each morning but you still get to play with them after naptime. Your best friends at school are Jianna and Lucy. You are really learning a lot there and have started to sing all sorts of random bible songs that I have no idea what they are. In Aldi last week you were shouting some song that the only part I could pick out was "Obey God" and you were yelling it pretty loudly. Ha ha! You also learned our mealtime prayer song at school and we try to sing it before every meal - "thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus for our lunch, for our lunch. And our many blessings and our many blessings. A-amen, A-amen.'

Your best friend is still Annakana. We don't see her as often as we'd like, but you still talk about her on at least a weekly basis and pray for her all the time with your bedtime prayers.  You've really started playing with the neighbor kids a lot so far this summer which is fun to see.  They are a little bit older than you, but you don't mind at all and you really just want to be everyone's friend.

Your daddy is still pretty head over heels for you. The way you say "daddy" might be the cutest thing to come out of your mouth. When you talk to him you always begin or end your sentence with "daddy" and it is really cute.  My favorite (and his too I think) is when you see him and you yell "Daddy!!!" and run over to him and give him a big hug as he lifts you up. It is so very sweet and I pray you will always have that sweet love for him. Daddy like to ask you "Who is my baby girl?" and you will shout - "Me!"

The things that come out of your mouth continue to make us laugh. You tell us "good job" a lot - today Daddy was helping you on the potty and you told him - "Daddy, good job turning on the princess nightlight" as he turned on the nightlight in the bathroom.  Your vocabulary and the clarity in which you talk is amazing. I can understand just about everything you say the first time.

Unfortunately, you are hitting that dreaded temper tantrum phase. It started about a month ago and has been getting progressively worse. You cry at the drop of a hat and have a hard time getting your emotions under control. Its funny how quickly you can go from so very sweet to so very upset.

You are still napping for a few hours a day on most days. At school if you do fall asleep at naptime, it isn't until the last 15 or 20 minutes of naptime and then they have to wake you up. At home you've been better lately but today you just sat in your crib and talked, role played with your dollies and sang for 2 hours.

You are fully potty trained!!!!! Yay!!!!! Eventually I think it just "clicked" and you decided you were ready to be a big girl and we put you in your big girl underpants and you've only had 1 accident in 3 weeks. Yay!!

You are still sleeping in your crib. You really do love it in there and don't try to climb out so we keep saying if it ain't broke don't fix it. We are debating what we are going to do with you once your brother comes - if we will keep you in your crib, or switch you to a big girl bed and give him your crib. We'll see.

Your favorite TV shows are Veggie Tales, Sophia the First, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Doc McStuffins and Mickey Mouse. You really love snuggling up with us on Friday nights and watching movies, too. We watched Mulan a few weeks ago and you and Daddy watched Mulan II this past weekend.

You are doing really good with all your letters and numbers and starting to get sounds down, too. You learned "M for Makenna Mmmm Mmm Mm" in school along with all the letters and sounds of all the kids in your class this year. You sing them all the time and a lot of times when you see a letter, you look at it and say something like L for Liam, Llll, Lll, Ll out of the blue.

Makenna Lee, we are so very in love with you and have had so much fun watching you learn and grow this past year. We look forward to what the next year has to bring for our family. We love you baby, girl!

We had a great day with you today!