The Turner Family: My Three Year Old

My sweetheart of a daughter is three (for almost a month now...I blame it on school and the holidays for my late post)! I can't believe it. Actually I can. I feel like she's been apart of my life for much longer.

Here are her stats:

Weight 28 lbs 8 oz (27th%)

Height 3' 2" (68th%)

She is officially, 100% potty trained for about two months now. It took a month of working with her, and when I was about to give up, she went to the bathroom all on her own. I think I got pretty lucky--actually I know I did. We didn't have to use any pull-ups, and never had a problem with trying to get her to do number two on the toilet. She has never peed her bed at night, but has had a few accidents when playing outside (actually only one since being full potty trained). I feel a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, I was dreading it so much. I am seriously in heaven with only Caleb's diapers to change. I consider it a great Christmas gift :).

She is a non-stop talker and I love it. It is so much easier to reason with her and tell her things like "if you take two more bites of dinner, you can have some dessert" and things like that. I've also come to realize that she is extremely polite. For example, this week she hadn't been feeling well, and I would say "Ellie, can I please give you some tylenol?" to which she responds "No, thank you." She does that with pretty much everything. "Ellie, do you have to go to the bathroom?" "Um, no. Thank you." Or, "Ellie, can you please get me a diaper for Caleb?" "No, thank you!", "Please?" "Oooootaaaaay" (She really responds like that, it's so silly). A few of my other favorite things she says is "Hello? Anybody here??" Whenever we walk into a dark room, even if it's the bathroom in our house. Another is "Wooowww, that's amazing!" or "Cool, mom!" It's so funny. I need to record her saying it, it's much cuter to hear than read. I also think it's funny the way she phrases questions: "You want to help me, please?" or "You want to hold me?" Another funny phrase is "Mommy (or daddy), you did it! I'm so proud of you!" when we put something in the garbage or go to the bathroom on our own... I think we must say that a lot to her. Also, it is so adorable when she says "thank you very much, mommy!" and puts her hands next to her cheek and bats her pretty eyelashes like an angel.

She likes all things pink and princess. I got her underwear that has all the princesses on it for her once she was fully potty trained and loves them. Her favorite is definitely Rapunzel.

Nighttime has gotten a lot easier now that we are able to communicate much easier with her and her with us. Most nights after scriptures and prayer, I'll feed Caleb and lay him down and then we'll let Ellie snuggle with us and get a little one-on-one time. Then, after maybe 20 minutes, she's as easy as pie to get into her bed. She a little more tired, and not as wound up, and ready for bed. It's awesome. She does not take naps (except Sundays) but I will either put her in her room for "quiet time" or else let her hang out with me in our bedroom while I do whatever it is I do (read, homework, etc). I thought I would hate it when she stopped taking naps, but it's really not that bad. The only bad part is if she's really tired and then falls asleep at 5 when I'm cooking dinner and don't notice. Then she will be up late... bummer. But she's so easy going and sweet, I love having her around.

She still loves milk (she pronounces it "milt"). She also likes yogurt, chips and salsa, pizza, rice, and chicken. She eats what we eat for dinner and shares greek yogurt with me in the mornings. She does not eat a lot, so I'm always grateful when she does.

It's become a nightmare getting her dressed, especially on Sundays. She never wants to wear what I pick out, so most days I let her wear some pretty tacky outfits that she has put together herself. But Sundays, I pick out what she wears (for the most part) which almost always ends in her getting mad because it's not pink (it's hard to find pink dresses in the winter!). She wears 4T dresses because she's pretty tall, 3T shirts, and 2T pants (she's still so skinny, unlike her plump brother).

She's a good older sister. She is kind and sweet to Caleb and loves making him laugh. They play really well together; it amazes me. Occasionally she'll take something from him that he had, but it doesn't seem to happen as often as I expected.

She still loves otter pops. The cooler weather does not deter her.

She loves to sing happy birthday. I often join in and it turns into a ten minute rendition with lots of high and low notes. Caleb likes to "dance" when we sing, which involves him bouncing up and down. It's so cute.

Ellie is a fan of hide and seek. I always hide in the same place, but she still loves it. She also loves tea parties. And balloons. She loves those. Oh, and also the moon, she is obsessed with the moon.

She loves to "help" me put on mascara and blush. She also likes to pull out my tweezers and fix my non-existent owies. She always tells me to open my mouth and go "ahh" and which point she informs me that my teeth are broken! Then she fixes them with the tweezers (I'm not exactly sure of the mechanics of that one, but I like her creativeness). It's pretty awesome.

She loves to tickle Tristan, Caleb, and I.

She enjoys sitting on her dad's lap while he works. She often requests to watch Minnie Mouse, and results in Tristan abandoning any idea of being productive. But he cannot say no to that girl, especially when it involves spending time with her.

She loves the swings. I am being completely honest when I say I can't push her high enough.

Ellie and I enjoy painting nails together. She's also very helpful with laundry and grocery shopping.

She can be extremely shy around people she doesn't know, but warms up quickly (normally). She is miss grumpy pants if you wake her up in the mornings or, on the rare occasion, a nap.

This was at Ellie's 3 year check up on December 4th. She was pretty shy with the medical assistant, but we have an amazing pediatrician and she perked right up!

Ellie, you're the sweetest and I'm so grateful you're my daughter.

Since I'm so late... I'm adding Ellie's birthday party into this post also.
So I had a whole party planned for her with delicious food, games, friends, the works! But her and Caleb were both not feeling well that day. So we ended up canceling it. Sad day. But her cousins still came over for a little bit and hung out with us.

The party was supposed to start at 2:00pm. This is what they were doing instead.

But after naps they were doing much better!

Oh, and Tristan and I got ourselves a new couch for Christmas. We sold our old couch in 15 minutes on Craig's list. Sooo... we had some makeshift seating haha.