This girl....

Reese turned 3 at the beginning of the year! She is such a lover doll! I don't know if it is because she spends every waking moment with me, or because she is my blood, but I see so much of my younger, more innocent and naive self in her. This assists me in parenting her because I know what would and wouldn't work for me when being punished, being taught, and being loved. 

She is such a sweet older sister, I'm so glad she is my oldest! She is so motherly, so intuitive, and so responsible and yet only three years old!!

We had lots of family in town over her birthday so we had a big party!

 Reese sang the happy birthday song along with everyone else, since it is one of her all time favorites! She sang it for a few consecutive days making sure to say "dear Reesey" instead of Ivan like she had been prior to her birthday week.

 She was spoiled!!

Last week when we had the first accumulating snow of January, we went outside and built a snowman, with a parsnip for a nose and chocolate chips for eyes and the mouth. Ivan HATED the whole experience. He did not want to be outside! I think it may have been nap time. Anyway, we made the snowman, sang "frosty the snowman" to it, per Reese's request. It was darling, and I decided I ought to get a pic of Reese by it. I told Reese to keep singing to the snowman while I ran inside to get the camera. When I came back out she was frowning and the snowman was toppled over with her hat laying next to it. Supposedly she had gotten to the part of the song that talks about placing a hat on his head and he began to dance around, took her hat off and tried to put it on the snowman's head and knocked him over in doing so. So we quickly re-built him while Ivan screamed with anger at being out there yet again.

 Reese loves dressing up in her princess dress-ups. And although she usually ends up with them on backwards (I actually think she thinks this pink dress is supposed to go like this), she is adorable! She also LOVES her baby dolls, the baby doll pictured is her "chubby baby".

 Reese now picks out her clothes and gets dressed on her own! HOLY MAKE MY LIFE SO MUCH EASIER! I can tell her to get dressed while I get Ivan dressed and we're ready to go in half the time. Sometimes I have to veto outfits, like shorts and tank tops when it is snowing, but most the time she does a good enough job.

I had to snap some pics of this outfit because she pulled the shorts up high AND they were on backwards.

 We babysat Micah & Rachel's baby Kaylyn the other night. As mentioned above, Reese is so motherly! She talked sweetly to Kaylyn the entire time and made sure all her needs were met. She even held the bottle the majority of the time Kaylyn was eating. I'm sure these two will be great friends despite the age difference.