Violet's Birthday

Violet's 3rd birthday party!

Yes, we have been slacking in our blog posts; however, as always, we have been tremendously busy. Add to that some not so great news, and you have the perfect recipe for no blogging!

So rather than trying to tackle everything all at once, I thought I'd just try to tackle the big events.

We celebrated Violet's birthday a couple days early over the holiday (Labor Day) weekend. We combined it with Miles' baptism, which allowed some of Violet's extended family (Great-Grandpa and Grandma Fynaardt, Great Auntie Alice and cousin Lydia) to join her to celebrate three years.

I'm finding that birthdays get progressively more difficult; or that the 3 year birthday is just one of those birthdays where no major new skills come into play, so the realm of toys/presents is a bit smaller. Ben and I struggled with ideas for her; she had her heart set on getting one of those motorized cars, but we said no. One, we live on a very busy street, and two, we just don't have the space. That being said, Violet still managed to rake in quite the collection of new things--tools, coloring books, a talking view finder (from the Discovery channel, which is actually quite cool), more my little ponies, a kite, and some other things that aren't immediately coming to mind. But perhaps the most exciting present came courtesy of her Grandpa Fynaardt--our back yard is now the proud owner of a TIRE SWING! This was also something that Violet has wanted for a while, and it has been a nice source of entertainment for our live in babysitter--Uncle Nick.

Here are a few pictures from the big event; the theme was My Little Ponies--as much as I tried to prevent Violet from loving the color pink, it seems to have backfired!

Swinging on the Tire Swing!

Presents, Presents, Presents!