Birthday Weekend

Gracie had an incredibly busy and mostly fun birthday weekend. Here's her weekend in a nutshell.

Friday - Her actual birthday: Gracie awoke in a crabby mood and it just never really got better. Our plans were to take her to the zoo. Her birthday cake had monkeys, bears, and tigers on it to continue the zoo animals theme. I should have realized that Gracie has a hard time with transitions and turning three must have been one of those tough transitions. So against my better judgment, we loaded her up in the car and headed to the zoo 70+ miles away. She was happy to be in the car for a while, but then became very unhappy and decided to gag herself to the point of throwing up everywhere. At the very moment that vomit was coming out of her mouth, one of her mondo nose bleeds started. By the time we arrived at our destination she was covered in blood and vomit and was still incredibly grumpy. I changed her clothes, cleaned her up, and we had a picnic in the back of the van. She didn't really enjoy the zoo. The few animals that she did seem to get into were the ducks, flamingos, fish, zebras, and some little goofy looking monkeys. We stayed a max of two hours and headed home. She napped in the car and again when we got home. She awoke a little happier, but still not great. She opened presents and our big surprise of the day was when she opened a card with money in it, got excited and said "money". We didn't even know she knew what money was. About 8:00 p.m. it was like a switch was flipped and she was in a great mood.

Saturday - More Birthday Cake: Gracie was in a GREAT mood, an incredible contrast from the day before. She was happy and cooperative and smiley and just so much fun to be around. We hung out at home for most of the morning, she took a long nap, and then Grandpa & Grandma D. and Aunt Kathy came over for supper and birthday cake. The theme of birthday cake #2 was Dora! We all played outside for awhile in the evening.

Sunday - A Birhday Cookie: Gracie was in a pretty good mood again today. We went to my church and she did pretty good for most of it. Jeff did need to take her out for a little while. Then we came home, had lunch, a nap, and Aunt Sheila, Uncle Chris (her Godparents) and cousin Kayla and Jason came over to help celebrate her birthday. Gracie loved playing with everyone and liked when Kayla and Jason would play with her in her room. We had a giant birthday cookie and today's theme was Tinkerbell. This evening we took her outside and she played on the swing and slide with our company and was very sad to see them leave.

I would say she knows how to celebrate!!!!

Love,

Lisa, Jeff, and Gracie