The LeSueur Family: Kate is 3 Years Old!

Our SweetCakes turned 3 towards the beginning of the summer. Hard to believe that I have a three-year-old without anyone else below her. I've never been in this position before (babyless), and I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. But that's all for another post.

Another little neighbor, Colter, on our culd-e-sac was born about 10 hours before Kate. Kate and Colter hung out together in the hospital and have since developed quite the love-hate relationship. I'm good friends with his mom, and she came up with the great idea of hosting a joint birthday party for the two of them in her backyard. And since my backyard was still quite muddy and out of sorts from relandscaping, I took her up on it.

It was a great time for all the littles in the neighborhood plus a few cousins. Kate wanted to show up to her party as a princess. Not sure why, because it was a water party. But she figured that her princess dress could pass for a swim cover-up.

Here's one of her favorite cousins, Caleb. Just a few months apart, they have always played so well together.

Trying to figure out how to get those fingers to work. . . it sure takes a lot of focus to keep the thumb and pinky finger tucked down. After working for a while, she finally got it.

Now she got it. How old are you Kate?

Kate, sitting next to Colter, getting ready to blow out their 3 candles.

Giant slip-n-slide provided plenty of fun for all the little people.

One of Kate's cousins, Jackson, thought the big bubble thing was a sword. Totally cracked me up. And you can tell by Kate's face how excited she is with the princess set she got. Within minutes of opening the gift, she had everything on--a crown, princess shoes, and lots of jewelry.

Kate has lots of fun friends right on the culd-e-sac that she loves to play with. Jane, Kate, and Ansley.

This is one of my favorite pictures. It shows John's bow-legged legs, and Kate's knock-knees. Kate can't put her feet together without her knees running into each other. On the other hand, John can't even make his knees touch for the life of him. Not sure where the genetics lined up there. . .

A new pair of sun glasses to add to the princess collection.

And for dinner that night, Kate was excited to eat off the custom-made "LeSueur Special Plate" that John and I made a few years ago. It hangs on our wall in the kitchen and gets taken down for only VERY special occasions.

Things I love about our 3 year old SweetCakes that I don't want to forget:

shes' a pleaser and loves to be a helper
she has compassion; if someone is sad or gets hurt, she's always the first at their side, giving kisses or saying sorry for what happened.
her smile and laugh are contagious, and she brightens up our whole house with how fun she is
I love love love her dark brown chocolate eyes that light up when she smiles
she sings throughout the day. sometimes it's to songs she has learned, but most of the time she makes up her own tune to her own words. For a while, the song lyrics were "I love _______ because he/she is soooooooo nice". Darling!
She idolizes her older sisters and loves to be by their side. She won't sleep with anyone else but Abby and loves it when EmmaClaire plays school, kitchen, or beauty parlor with her.
Frequently when John or I show affection to her (tell her we love her or give her hugs), she hugs us super tight and pets our arms or hair over and over again while sighing. Love it.
And for the record, at her well child check, here are the growth stats: height 87%, weight 90%, and head circumference was completely off the charts and would have been around 150% if there was such a thing.