Happy Birthday, Arya!

Our little Arya is turning 3 years old today. I can hardly believe it. She is such a fun little girl. She loves to talk, talk, talk, and tell you all the things that she is thinking. She loves singing songs. (I need to post some videos of her recent favorites.) She loves painting at her easel in the kitchen, which she does nearly every day. Some of her favorite things to paint include fish in water, Sesame Street characters, ducks, and the Lion King. (She has a Lion King book, and likes to look at the book and have me help her copy one of the pictures in it - where Mufasa and Sarabi are standing on the big rock with baby Simba.) She loves to read books and to go to the library, where they have a big wooden boat to play in.

One of her other favorite things to do is to play games at one of the two websites we let her go to - sesamestreet.org and nickjr.com. I am amazed watching her navigate the sites, pick the games that she wants to play and work the keypad or mouse to do the things that she wants to do! At Nick Jr., some of the games ask you to type in your name, which she excitedly does, and then at the end they'll make a little card for you that you can print out that says something like, "Arya saves the day!!" with a picture of the Wonder Pets or other characters. She has to ask to use the printer, but really loves it when I let her print something!! We definitely have to limit how much she plays because I think she'd play all day long if we would let her!!

Arya is very excited about the Spring flowers that are starting to pop up. She wants to pick them all! She is very happy that it is getting warmer and that we've been able to play outside more lately. We like to walk down to the "duck pond" at the retirement complex that is close to our house, and she always asks if we have any old bread she can take to feed the ducks and swans. She likes to plant rocks in the yard (which I discourage), but also likes to plant leaves too. She'll push aside the dirt, stick whatever she is planting into the ground, and cover it with more dirt. She'll water it too, if she has any access to something that will hold water! She likes to look for what she calls "beautiful leaves", and likes to point out the different colors that she notices in the sky when the sun is getting low. She'll say, "Look, Mommy, the sky is SO beautiful!" I wish you could hear it!!

I wanted to write a little about these things so that I can remember exactly what this stage in her life was like, but there are so many things that I love about her that it is hard to write them all down. Needless to say, we can't imagine life without this precious little girl in our lives. We love you so much, Arya!! Happy Birthday!!