3 years old already!

Sophia squinting after a lovely birthday
We had such a lovely birthday weekend with our little lady. We bought a family membership to the Baltimore Aquarium for part of Sophia's gift and (of course, it's more of a family expense than a birthday expense). We had a lovely time in Baltimore on Saturday, and may make it a continuing tradition, since it was the second year in a row. The aquarium is fantastic, and the kids enjoyed it. We especially enjoyed watching the girls bopping and dancing to the music in Chipotle. I guess they just use wonderful music. We also got to stop at the giant Barnes and Noble so the kids could get their summer reading program award books. Yeah for free books! We got lucky, and saw a banner as we drove into town declaring that there was a festival of San Gabriel in Little Italy that day. Yeah! We were planning on going there anyways, but between the festival and the restaurant week menus at the restaurants, it was perfect timing! The day was truly perfect, at least until we hit the traffic coming home! Oh well, life can't be totally perfect or I would get too content ( :


Despite traffic and a late hour, the kids were still happy, which is more than I can say for the next day!

Because we didn't have time to throw the cake together that evening, we let them celebrate with a yummy Italian pastry!


She loved her new dancewear for her dance class from Great Grandma.



The doll from Yia-Yia was a big hit!



Small and simple things please a 3 year old! We bought her gum and a big rubber ball and she LOVED them. I don't know why I bothered spending money on a cute birthday dress when she is so easily satisfied.




We had cake for breakfast on Sunday so she'd have a chance to finally have her cake! It was fun ( :



By now she was an expert blower.



She reveled in the attention, singing "Happy birthday to ME" while pointing at herself. We can't wait to celebrate more birthdays with our sweet, spirited little girl!