Whitney, the Birthday Kid!

Well, I think it's official, Whitney is no longer a baby.  I loved the way Whitney would say the word "two" when people asked her how old she was, but now she's three and moving into big kid territory.

Whitney is now 39 inches tall, putting her in the 90th percentile for height.  She weighed in at 35 pounds, also in the 90th percentile.  She used to always be in the 75-80th percentile for weight and the 98th for height... I think her constant snacking (she always has snacks on the mind!) has caused her weight to catch up to her height.

Whitney is a resourceful little girl - she is known to use chairs, boxes and what not as step stools to reach toys or candy in high up places.  She's a little artist and can drag a picture of her baby bumblebee doll with such precision that Adam and I could tell what she was drawing without her telling us.  She's athletic, stubborn and full of energy.

Her birthday fell on a weekend this year, so we had a big backyard BBQ with her friends and their families to celebrate.

The girls all dressed up for the party.

No backyard birthday party is complete without a bounce house!

Whitney with one of the favorite friends from pre-school, Lils,
and Lils' big sister.

Having a bday lunch with Eli, Lils and Gwen

More kiddos

The play structure was at max capacity and even beat out the bounce
house in terms of utilization.  Yay on that purchase.  Whitney spent
a long time pushing Molly on the swings.

Blowing out her candles

Family picture (minus Paige who was asleep in her swing through the
whole party!)

Whitney taking a shot at the pinata.

Gwen taking her turn

The kids started bringing presents up to Whitney in the deck
of the play structure.  We ended the party with half of her presents open
and no idea who gave her what.

We ended up with so much left over food, that we had people over that evening for round 2 of birthday celebrations.  We still have about 50 hot dogs in our fridge and maybe 100 buns.  Round 3 is in the works.  Whitney had so much fun being the center of attention for the day - eating lots of candy, playing with her friends, and having people come up to her asking her to open their present (which she happily obliged).

The next morning when Whitney woke up, I laid with her in bed and she asked very sweetly "Am I still the birthday kid?".  It broke my heart to have to tell her no!