FOUR!

Wow.  Gianna turned four today. No more baby here!

Just had a small family dinner and a simple little box cake.

She didn't mind.  She was super excited.

She's been into mermaids lately, so she nearly blew out our eardrums when she opened her mermaid outfit and "Ariel wig" which is really a Merida wig from Brave.   

 We couldn't stop laughing.

Happy Birthday, Gianna. 

My Birthday

My birthday was last week. I would have been perfectly happy to let it pass without notice - not because of my advancing age, but because I knew the day would be one of those heavy milestones associated with those who are bereaved.  There were a few factors that came into play which were the cause for celebration.  One factor comes in the form of a three year old named Gianna.

Before Christmas when we were celebrating my brother's birthday, Gianna wanted to know whose birthday would be next.  When I told her it would be mine she exclaimed, "Oh, happy birthday, Mommy!"  I told her it wasn't then, but we'd have to wait until January.  "Oh, when Beauty and the Beast comes to the movies?"  This child doesn't forget a thing.

I knew Gianna would be disappointed if she didn't have a gift for me (that would've been an Daddy date) and I didn't think it would be good for me to take her shopping, so I sought the help of one of my 'shopping for sport' friends who also is the mother of two boys and who has always felt a little deprived of the girl-mommy experience.  They went shopping and I had a few hours to myself. Win-win.  Gianna was so cute when they got back.  She wanted desperately to tell me everything she got for me but every time I cut her off - she said, "Well, Mommy -- we just got you an elephant."  (That was her coaching from Sissy.) Sissy really wanted Gianna to 'wrap' (bag) the gifts herself. There FOUR bags of really sweet gifts.

Well, they were mostly sweet.  One bag in particular included questionable contents.  My friend said when Gianna picked it out she turned to her and said, "Oh Ms. Sissy, do you think if we got this for Mommy - she would share." I couldn't imagine what it could be.

And then after my birthday dinner with my family, I opened them all up.  It was easy to spot the curious choice....

 She was proud to tell me that she helped make these bath gels with the lady at the store.  She even got to pick little treasures to put in the gel: 

sparkles, stars, squishy little figures and drumroll please.....

a FINGER and a little RAT!!!

EWWWW!!!!!

She was so proud - and yes, I DEFINITELY shared.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I know my closest friends were concerned about my upcoming birthday and that it wouldn't be the same - maybe even difficult and sad - without Iain.  They wanted to be intentional about celebrating it, but also wanted to be respectful of my needs and wants.

Two of my closest circles of friends planned different things for me.

My special 'sister friends' (who have been unbelievable in their support and practical help) took me out to eat one night at a wonderful restaurant at the casino - and then to a fun dessert shop. They even provided me with childcare. So nice - and low key.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The second group of friends I have known since HS/college (and one since elementary).  They also gave me a list of options (I poo-pooed the party idea) and I settled on a lunch/movie date on the day of my birthday.  One of the girls hosted at her home and made soup and a panini bar for lunch. Another friend had a birthday the next day - so I was MORE than happy to share the spotlight. After lunch we watched a movie.  If you haven't seen Connie & Carla - it's a hoot.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

On the night before my birthday - Gianna and I were a little stir crazy (weekends are so hard and lonely) so I knew we should get out of the house.  I decided to take her to a restaurant for supper and when she asked why I told her it would be my birthday supper. "It's January twenty-fird? I can't believe this! Happy Birthday, Mommy!"  She was beside herself. I explained that the next day was really my birthday, but this night would be our little family celebration. (Having a family of two is taking a lot of getting used to.)

So, we are seated and the waitress approaches with the usual spiel. Gianna pipes up (without prompting) and says in one breath,

"I would like macaroni and cheese, corn on the cob, chocolate milk - I've never had chocolate milk. And it's my Mommy's birthday, can you make her a cake."

The waitress was as surprised and entertained as I was. Gianna had the most adorable conversation with her and I continue to marvel at her social skills. 

Gianna was beside herself when they actually brought a birthday cake. She couldn't believe she made it happen.  (I couldn't believe she thought to ask. She's never seen a cake at a restaurant before.)

The waitress, stayed to watch her first bite and it was worth watching.

She closed her eyes and made the precious, appropriate mini-moaning noise.

"This is ah-MAY-zing!!!

It would have made the best commercial.

The waitress got such a kick out of her that she kept bringing other employees to see "the kid who needs an agent."  It was really a nice evening. Iain would've gotten the biggest kick out of it. His presence was missed SORELY, but I'm glad I got another milestone under my belt.

Party time....

Well, almost a month later - I'm finally posting about Gianna's birthday party.

The theme was - use whatever you have around the house to throw a 3 year old party.....starting with the invitations.

The theme was Cupcakes...if that is even considered a theme.

I found these cupcake placemats for 96 cents at Pier One in November. I knew I'd figure some way to use them.  (I cut the letters out of felt that I already had....didn't even have to glue them!)

She was given a fancy party had for her first birthday, I've uncovered it and re-covered it each year.

Simple spread...just had hotdots and cupcakes. (Chips and dips too.)

I wasn't sure if just cupcakes would suffice, so I finally got to use my giant cupcake mold and put the humungo cupcake on top of a cake.

Little friends (and big ones too) made for a fun time.

Lovin' from Nanny Jeanne and Uncle Alan...

Our PRECIOUS godchild, Nate...

Precious indeed!

The gifts were awesome! And SO appreciated.

My family was in Florida for the funeral of a close family friend of ours, but Uncle Vinnie gave Gianna an awesome gift....

And right before we were getting ready to sing Happy Birthday, Gianna got the BEST gift!  MeMaw and PePaw caught an earlier flight and made it just in time to celebrate with us!

(I was TERRIBLE with my camera on party day.  I missed so many shots and so many people.)

* * * * *

And Mommy schemed up an idea for she and Daddy to give to their big three year old.
Daddy even built it himself!

HER VERY OWN STAGE.

(She's been holding concerts ever since she got her karaoke machine at Christmas.)

The stage was a hit.

The party was a success.

And the momma was tired.

And as happy as I am to celebrate my child, I'm SO glad we have another 11 months to think about another party. :)

Back when I was a kid....

....my mom used to make a great cake for our family birthday celebrations which became a tradition for many years. It's called an Ice Box Log Cake and it's a super simple cake made with Nabisco's Famous  Chocolate Wafers  (super thin chocolate cookies) and homemade whipped cream (with a touch of vanilla and sugar.)  

Heavenly... 

...and so easy.  You make spread generous amounts of the cream on each cookie and set them aside in little stacks.  Then you assemble the stacks on their sides into a log and cover with cream.  Once your put it in the refrigerator to chill, the cream moistens and expands the cookies into soft yummy cake. (Told you it was easy.)  The neat thing is that when you cut the cake on a diagonal it looks like this...

It's like eating the lightest, fluffiest, tastiest cookies and cream cake. (It has an Oreo taste.)

I knew I'd be making a big birthday cake and cupcakes for Gianna's party, but I wanted a little something special for her actual birthday.  I started doing some research and discovered that there are MANY people who grew up enjoying this wonderful cake in the 60's and 70's.  The one complaint is that the wafers are super hard to find. You can order them on the internet, but I understand there are a lot of broken cookies and you have to order an entire case - which is much more than I need or want to spend. 

The more I started thinking about how much time and/or money I might waste in search of these chocolate wafers, the more inspired I became to see if anyone had a copycat recipe for them.  Oh how I love Google!  I found the recipe here and I had all the ingredients at home - so it made things so much easier. The recipe for the Icebox cake is here. (You can add a little sugar to the whipping cream to sweeten it a bit.)

I didn't tell my parents I was making this cake, so I think they were really surprised that I was able to resurrect such a memorable part of our family history.  It was my brother's favorite cake growing up (mine too) but he's been working in Florida, so he didn't get to see/eat it.  Don't worry Uncle Vinnie, I'll make you one when you come back.

Now we have a new Lewis Family Tradition!

Two thumbs up from the three year old!

THREE!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a THREE YEAR OLD in the HOOUUSSEEE!!!!!

Yes, indeedy ~ our little munchkin is THREE!!!

Three has got to be one of my absolute favorite ages.

They are little people who are capable of big conversations and start grasping big concepts, but they still have a little bit of baby pudge left in their faces and hands and you can still see your baby when you look at them.

I remember when I was a youth minister, I ran a Vacation Bible School with my teens for 3-5 year olds.  I would say, "Five year olds:  line up behind ME!"  And they did.

Then I'd say, "Four year olds: line up behind ME!"  And they quickly fell into line.

Then I'd get to the littlest ones, "Three year olds: line up behind ME!"

And without fail, their little eyes would widen with excitement and like popcorn, their responses shot out, "I'm FREE!" "I'm FREE" "Hey, I'm free, TOOO!!!"

Of course, they never made it into a line, but it was just so fun to watch them celebrate themselves.

Even at the last day, when they performed their little songs for the parents, the three year olds would run up to me and hug me after each song. SO cute.

I am so excited for this fun age with Gianna.

We've all heard the war stories of the 'terrible twos' from those that have gone before us, but more and more often I'm hearing, "Two was a breeze! Watch out for THREE!" or "Three is the new two." 

Within a few weeks of her third birthday, we have witnessed one change in her personality, that we weren't prepared for.  D R A M A!!!!!!

Holy Cannoli.  When it's not exasperating, it's quite comical. And it was like someone just flipped a switch in her.

Example:  After a Time-Out episode the other day, I went to get her and told her that I wanted to be sure she understoood that she would no longer be able to play with her new guitar that evening.

She gasped, threw her forehead into her open hands and with as much dramatic expression as she could muster, cried,

"OHHH NOOOO!!!!! That is just HYSTERICAL!"

Obviously, she misused the word, but it was as a dramatic a word as she could come up with on the spot.

HELLLOOOOO THREEEEE!!!!!!

Galveston Birthday Trip

"Should we stay or should we go?"

Well, that was the question of the day last month. We planned to go to Galveston for a few days to celebrate Gianna's 2nd birthday and, as luck would have it, Hurricane Alex decided to hit Southern Texas right at the same time. Even though the storm presented no severe threat to the island, we knew our big plans for "beaching it" would, no doubt, be compromised.

In an effort to prepare Gianna for our mini-excursion, we talked about going on a big boat with our car (the ferry), building sandcastles on the beach, putting our toes in the sand, standing in the oceans (the Gulf).

My dad was thoughtful enough had called ahead to see if the ferry was running (it was) so on our way we went. We got closer to Galveston and realized that even though the ferry was running, the highway was closed due to high water. Fantastic. We had to turn around and go the long way adding another hour to the two hour trip. Thankfully we had already had our 15 hour Kansas City trip a few weeks prior which made this 3 hour mini-trip pale in comparison.

The Hotel

We knew we wanted to visit Moody Gardens, so we actually ended up staying at the hotel there...thinking it would be smart to right where all the action was.  Smart? Yes. Cheap? No. Worth it? Jury's still out.

The was our view.  Rain. Gray. Gloom.

Thankfully our little viewer was entertained by the rain.  Ahhh. Always a silver lining.

And we tried out our new toddler travel bed...since the Pack-n-Play was an absolute joke our last trip as Gianna REFUSED to go near it.  I vowed to begin Pack-N-Play boot camp when we returned from K.C. but decided that using precious nap time to "train" her to sleep in it was a ridiculous waste of time and energy.  I was going to try hard to avoid sleeping on the floor this go around.  And Gianna sleeping in our bed doesn't work for ANY of us.  So, I had to do a little investigating of some possibilities.

I found The Shrunks Toddler Travel bed which is basically like a little blow up raft with a blow up mattress that fits inside it.  It comes with a foot pump which takes less than five minutes to inflate.  Gianna LOVES it and thinks it is  much more fun as a trampoline than as a bed, but she did really well after she got used to it.

Moody Gardens

 All the exhibits we couldn't wait to experience with her -- were filled with the wonder and awe but were over in 15 minutes each. I guess we had high expectations for our new two year old. 

Rainforest Pyramind.  Zip.

And have I mentioned how much I appreciate that little monkey leash harness?

We bought a two day package that included almost everything.  Unfortunately, the weather prohibited us from enjoying many of them.  They told us we had to choose our IMAX movie at that time.  We saw one called Across the Sea (or something like that) and figured 45 minutes of ocean views would be perfect for

our little two year old.

 And we thought the 3D experience would be awesome.

Well, guess what?  To our surprise, the very first movie our child sees is NOT about the ocean. Apparently the movie we thought was Across the Sea is really titled The Sea Across Time is about the journey of a Russian boy trying who stows away on a ship 'across the sea' to make a new live in America.  Dear heavens....FORTY FIVE minutes of an immigration story.  We felt like stellar parents.  Apart from watching Gianna try to grab at all the 3D images, we were bored out of our minds and felt a little duped. Gathering from the expressions of the other movie goers, we were not alone.

We had initally seen the advertisements for Happy Feet in 4D, but thought a two hour movie might be too much for Gianna to handle.  Yet another misunderstanding.  Happy Feet in 4D is only 12 minutes long. TWELVE MINUTES! And we sat through FORTY FIVE minutes of torture a very mature story for a toddler.

 

So on we went to see Happy Feet.  I didn't really understand the concept of 4D until then.  I just thought it was another visual dimmension - which makes little sense when I think about it.  Nope. We got blasts of cold air, had our chairs shaken and moved, bubbles floating about and even a spray of water in our faces.  Precious.  Gianna was giddy with excitement.  So fun to watch.

And there was this Frog Mascott deal that Gianna was obsessed with (I'm telling you, the girl is going to stroke out when we eventually go to Disney.) She kept telling him she was two and wanted to touch him and hug him.  He was a decent enough sport, but then he walked off with her stroller for kicks and giggles, I suppose. 

Gianna was confused...

...and we thought his sense of humor needed some work.

The Rainforest Cafe

I'm so happy we decided to go here for Gianna's birthday dinner.

  I know some little ones are freaked out by the animatronics, fiery plates, storm simulations and loud noises, but I was optimistic that her reactions would be positive.  Gianna didn't disappoint.

Her excitement began outside with the tree frog...

and her delight continued with the gorilla...

...and pretty much stopped inside with the snake!

Her enthusiasm returned once we passed the snake, though.

She would wave and yell at all the animals across the room saying, "Hi Ele-pant!" (or whatever animal it was) "I two!!!" (sticking up her two index fingers just in case they might understand that better.)

 

Instead of cake, they brought her an ice-cream sundae and had the restaurant sing to her while they had her flap her "wings" like a butterfly.  She was somewhere between stunned and tickled.

Okay, maybe just stunned.

"I two." she told them.

She was lovin' the candle as much as the ice cream.

Even though it wasn't exactly as we planned it (is it ever?) it was a perfect celebration for our birthday girl.