Eliza turns 3

This year Eliza's birthday was the day before Thanksgiving.  Isaiah's birthday is always while we're in Utah for our summer visit; I'm pretty sure my kids think you can't have a birthday if you are not in Utah.  It's fun to have lots of cousins around and it's super fun that they don't want "friends" parties yet because we all know I'd cave to the pressure and have way too much stress about making everything theme-y and stuff.  Sometimes parenting little ones is hard; things like this make me glad they're still little.

Eliza isn't really so much of a girly girl.  Like, not at all.  She likes to play with Isaiah and do everything he does, which is pretty much all monster trucks and hot wheels.  As much as I really wanted a little girl, this non-girlyness doesn't bother me at all.  Because as much as I really wanted a little girl, I really really wanted a strong, independent girl who isn't afraid to do her own thing.  Which is why when she said she wanted a monster truck birthday cake I didn't care a bit.  Soon enough she'll be in school and the other little girls will get her interested in dolls and princesses and (ahhhhhh!) Barbies.  For now we'll stick with monster trucks.

She did surprise me recently and picked Disney Princess sippy cups over Toy Story ones.  Her little friends thought it was silly that she couldn't name a single one of them.  She would probably find it equally unbelievable if she knew those girls don't know the names of any of the monster trucks!  

I don't have any pictures, but I made her these super adorable dolls for her birthday.  She asked for, and received, boy gifts--a monster truck, cars, etc.--but I wanted to give her the opportunity to like something girly.  It didn't surprise me a bit that she had no interest in them.  Grandma tried and tried to get her to play with them, even resorting to having the dolls go for rides on the monster trucks.  It's been a few months now and the dolls just sit in the toy box.  Like I said, I expected this reaction, so it doesn't bother me.  What DID bother me was before Christmas when I had the kids go through their toys to find some to donate to Goodwill.  They weren't too excited about it, even after I explained all about the less fortunate, but they did it.  Eliza brought me the handmade dolls to give away.  I refused.  "We are NOT giving those away."  Zay pointed out that no one plays with them; he even volunteered to explain why:  "they are really ugly, Mom."  I insisted we were keeping them.  "But Mom, what about the POOR kids?!"  "I don't care about the poor kids, we're keeping these dolls!"  And so we've kept them; she gets them out occasionally (and by "occasionally" I mean twice since November) and that's okay with me.  Either she'll appreciate them at some point, or they will be in super great shape when I give them to her daughters someday!