Ballet Class

Arabella just began taking her first dance class - a ballet class! She loves it, she even asks everyday if today is ballet day! :) Here are a few pictures from her first ballet class

Birthday Pictures!

Here are some pictures from Arabella's 3rd Birthday!

Princess Arabella wearing her new tiara!

Happy Birthday and 4th of July Cupcakes

Sharing her cupcake with Grandma Patti

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We celebrated Arabella's birthday over the 4th of July weekend in Okoboji! Dave's brother Steve and his fiance Joanna, Dave's younger brother Mark and his girlfriend Sarah, and Dave's mom Patti all came up to help us celebrate. We had such a fun time! It was great weather and we made some great memories!

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On Arabella's birthday (July 8), she woke up and came downstairs to her big birthday surprise - her new big girl bike! :) She was ecstatic and wanted to go ride it right away. She loves riding to the mailboxes to get the mail - she even puts the mail key into her princess pouch on the front of her bike. We also celebrated at Incredible Pizza for dinner. Her favorite part was going on the Go Karts with her Daddy.

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Arabella and her Great-Gramma Alice having a tea party in the swimming pool

Daddy and Arabella

Arabella requested a "Balloon cake with suckers" (just like we saw at Target), so we made our first Jello poke cake! It was really good! :) You can see the sucker "balloons" were a big hit! She was really excited.

Three Year Old Swimmer Girl!

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We also celebrated Bella's birthday in Sioux City with my parents, my Aunt Debbie, Uncle Al, and my Gramma Alice. We had a pool party, complete with a serious volleyball game and tea parties with Arabella... Then we grilled and opened presents. I love that our families are so involved with Arabella and they all come to help celebrate her birthdays with us. :)

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Arabella Ann Leighton - Three Years Old

I can hardly even believe that my beautiful baby girl is already three years old. It seems like just yesterday we were swaddling her every night for bed and debating whether or not we should start solid foods. Here are the facts about Arabella at Three:

Her favorites are:

Foods - Cheese and Fruit

Movie - Snow White

Book - Just One More Swim by Caroline Pitcher

Game - Candy Land

TV Show - Super Why and Dinosaur Train

Color - Purple

Song - Yankee Doodle

She is exactly 36 inches tall (10th percentile) and weighs 27.5 pounds (25th percentile)... She is still just a tiny little bean! She wears a size 24 month shirt and size 18 month pants - can you believe it?!

Bella wakes up between 5 and 6 mostly every morning, no matter what time we put her to bed. She's definitely an early bird! However, she does wake up with a smile every morning! She loves to cuddle in the mornings - those are some of my favorite times, sitting on the couch cuddling with Bella while she drinks cocoa and I have my coffee. :)

Arabella is very girly at times but also loves to get dirty... much to my dismay, Arabella loves playing in the sand and the dirt... eww! She loves to run and roll in the grass, but she would dress up in princess clothes everyday if we let her!

Bella is very excited to be three... she now has chores at home because big kids need to help out around the house. She feeds Mondavi every day. She also sets the table for dinner and helps me with laundry. She is so responsible, often remembering to do her chores without prompting.

She is a really fun little girl... but she is very strong-willed (not quite sure where she gets that - LOL) and the terrible two's that didn't actually happen are carrying over into the terrible three's! We'll get through it by the Grace of God and a little patience... hopefully!

I'll post a few pictures tomorrow, too tired tonight! :)