Cherry Blossoms!

Grandma Debbie and Pa sure are good to miss Scarlet Rose! They love her so much and it shows!

Family pyramid...Ginger's on bottom.

Scarlet is really into climbing trees and thought she needed her picture taken in one.

More Happy Birthday Pics

I finally uploaded the pics from our camera and found a few to add.

Scarlet loves blowing out candles!

Singing her Happy Birthday. For a couple weeks prior to her birthday I would catch her singing to herself, "Happy Birthday party to me!" It was so cute!

Doing the fairy princess dance!

Searching for hidden fairy treasure.

Making (eating) fairy princess Fruit Loop necklaces.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Scarlet Rose!

We don't go out to eat very often and I thought it would be fun to take her out to Red Robin for some balloons and endless fries; two of her favorite things. It was awesome having the rest of the family along! Scarlet loved it when she was sang to by the workers there and clapped along for all the bizillions of birthdays there that night.

Poor uncle Michael only got part of his milkshake, Scarlet commandeered it soon after it's arrival and he surrendered willingly and was left with the extras in the silver cup.

Loving on her rootbeer...or I should say, "Oatbeer" because that's how she says it.

All the fairies together in one place, didn't happen too much that afternoon. We had fairy princesses all over the place. I needed to round them all up for the picture. They loved their tutu's too, which was awesome...but I'll probably never do anything like that again. :)

Scarlet loved her fairy princess tutu! She was so cute!!! Because she's so tiny and the tutu was so full, it was even cuter! Definitely worth the work involved.

Scarlet's big gift and it wasn't even from us. Grandma Debbie, Pa, Great Gramma Daisy and Great Uncle Dan all went in on the gift. Scarlet squealed so loud when she saw Pa walking it up the front path. She loves it! She still needs to be protected from the sun because of transplant related issues and her having such fair skin anyway, the canopy is an awesome addition!

Opening her presents. Scarlet was bombarded by fairy princesses all trying to see what she got and help her open them.

Grandma Debbie did lots of fun games for the party, like hunting for lost treasure in a bin of rice, a flower walk, making fruit loop necklaces, pass along the fairy shoe and making fairy princess wings.

3rd Birthday Cake

I didn't realize her eyes were closed in this shot and I couldn't figure out how to cut it. Oh well, Scarlet is the big helper in the kitchen. We got her the play kitchen for Christmas so that she could pretend cook with me, nope, she wants to do it for real!

Picking Grandma Debbie and Pa up from the airport, it was a long week/s without them.

Scarlet helping out with the MMfondant for her birthday cake. Whenever she tastes something sweet, like the fondant, she smiles really big and says "mmm, this tastes good!" We made jello jigglers a week ago and after putting it into the fridge to set up and going upstairs, she comes up with blue all over her saying the exact same thing, I knew exactly what had happened. Jello was everywhere in the fridge!

Two weeks left and baby Ginger will be here! Here I am working on the MMfondant the day of her birthday party trying to salvage my mistakes. I was trying to save myself some time and only do one batch for an enormous cake- it didn't work out, so two hours before the party I'm scrambling with another batch and trying to make the masterpiece. But...I'm smiling! (Ignore the disaster kitchen)

Here it is! My work of art shown at an angle that hopefully doesn't show all of my errors. I asked Debbie how many cakes it would take to finally become a professional and she gave me some good words of wisdom. She said...and actually, I can't quote her because I can't remember exactly how she said it, and she reads this blog so I can't make it up. :) But basically, that it doesn't matter if you make mistakes as long as you know how to cover them up. Note the flower strategically placed in the corner; It's there to serve a purpose! I'll have to post on the fairy wands another time, I didn't get the pictures on my camera uploaded yet. Or maybe I won't divulge that secret, a friend and I are discussing...a plan. :)

Easter

Scarlet was so excited to get to see her Easter basket. I tried explaining to her that the Easter bunny came and brought the basket...but somehow she still remembers Santa and kept saying "ho, ho brought my Easter basket."

We organized a big Easter egg hunt with some friends and used the church ball field to hide them in. It was fun seeing all the kids get so excited to find the eggs. Scarlet loved it!

She also loved finding dandelions and blowing the seeds...As long as they don't end up in our yard it's ok!

Here's most of the group of friends who joined in. I put Scarlet in her pretty Easter dress because I wanted to get some cute pictures of her. She's such a little doll.

I love this picture because it is only just recently that she has been saying "cheese" into the camera and I actually not only got a frontal of her face but she's also smiling! Wow!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!!

Scarlet's Aunt Kellie's Aunt Chris made her this bunny towel and it is so adorable! I just love it and so does Scarlet! She also made a blue one for baby Ginger (if that ends up her name).

Scarlet loves jumping in the shower with me; It's been an every morning thing lately. I try to talk her into a bath but she wants in with me. I'm trying to put my Americanized view on this aside and remember my days in Germany where this is no big deal, because it feels like it shouldn't be, but then it feels like it should be. I dunno, we'll see how much longer this lasts...

Scarlet and Presley playing paints together! She has so much fun playing finger paints. It's another way for her to practice getting her hands messy and getting used to the feeling of sticky mess. I've realized over the past few months at how much I dislike having anything on my hands and I'm wondering if I've subconsciously instilled that in her. I think I need to start playing whipped cream and paints now, too!

Turning each other into beautiful butterflies! It was the only thing I could think of to say to get Scarlet to explore more with it. It worked, she loved trying to be a butterfly!

Scarlet and her therapist working on decreasing her messy hands anxiety. Three giant sized cans of whipped cream and an hour in the bathtub helped a lot!
She didn't want to touch it at first but after a while it got everywhere and she loved putting it all over the walls and licking it.

A word of advice if anyone out there is bored on a rainy day and wants to let their kids have some fun: clean up IMMEDIATELY after the mess and don't let them wear good clothes-or at least wash the clothes right after, too. There were grease stains on her alien shirt that I love and it was a pain in the back to scrub the whipped cream once it dried.

I couldn't clean up right after because Scarlet's second therapist showed up while I was drying her off and then I was busy the rest of the day with a meeting...and then, well, I just forgot about it.
Scarlet had a ton of fun and by the end of it she was so messy and didn't mind having her hands sticky. So it was all worth it!