Maylee's Fun in the Sun birthday party

Maylee loves the Newcastle Beach Park on Lake Washington, so we planned to have her third birthday party with our friends there in the late afternoon on Sunday, June 8.  We hoped and prayed for a sunny day (not too common for early June in Seattle), and we got a beautiful, 75 degree day!!  The kiddos had a fantastic time playing in the sand, water, and at the playground.  We are so thankful for our friends and it meant a lot to have them all there!  We had snacks, dinner, and chocolate cupcakes too (Maylee loves chocolate! Truly a girl after my own heart).  

We started out splashing in the water and sand

Jason lifting Mei Mei up into the sky!  She loves to go up in the air.

We brought a bunch of sand toys for everyone to play with.  Our friend Amanda from church (sitting and helping with the sand project) joined us to celebrate too!

This giant pool was already started when we got there.  Ry loves to dig and make new canals and pools for the water to flow through.

Our friend Afsi brought a bubble machine... Maylee is still delighted with bubbles!

Sweet snuggles with Daddy

We had fruit kabobs, veggie kabobs with dip, sliced meat and cheese, and snacks...

as well as pizza for dinner!

I made a hanging collage of photos from Maylee's first three years... such precious memories...

I didn't get a chance to take close-ups at the party (we were too busy having fun and making sure everything went smoothly!) but got a few at home (these photos were also in her 3rd birthday blog post).

Mei Mei had fun looking at them too :)

And some of the flowers... her main arrangement was one of the arrangements we sponsored at church the Sabbath before in celebration of her birthday, and I had fun making three smaller arrangements (this is one of them) from the beautiful and very large arrangement that was up front at church.

Dinner!

And cupcakes!  I also decorated some Milano "flip-flop" cookies :) (thanks to Afsi for this photo and the next!)

Cupcake anticipation...

Priceless expressions in these photos!

And a cute one from the other end of the table (thank you, Afsi!)

Blowing out her candles

Hooray!!

Yum!!

Yay, I'm three!!! (Also another fun photo from Afsi :) )

Tesla making a great, happy face!

And playground time!

Maylee's littlest and newest friend, Mackenzie... just one month old!

So excited and showing off her "3" shirt (from CantaloupeCorner on Etsy... they have awesome shirts for kids!)

We treasure all the memories we have from this fun, happy day of celebrating our sweetie!  

And a few more birthday-related photos...

Helping make the cupcakes for her party the day before :)

Opening gifts the day after... thank you everyone for the lovely presents!

Fun drawings from her friends :)

A wonderful birthday!

Here's some of the fun we had on Maylee's birthday, June 4!

Excited to see her decorations and balloons when she first woke up!

It was our playgroup day and we headed to Kidz Bounce in the morning.  She and Rylan both continue to love it there!

Mini cupcakes with our playgroup friends, Thomas and Andrew

Yum!

Holding hands and zooming down together!  I love that Mei Mei and Ry Ry still sometimes ask to hold my hand when we go down together :)

And I love my sweet girl and her sweet snuggles!

What a face! :) Mei Mei currently likes to wear her sunglasses upside down.

Eagerly awaiting her cupcake!

Grandmama and Grandpa Larry wanted to skype with us on or close to her birthday... and Jason surprised us and came home early, so it worked out to sing and have cupcakes then!

So excited!

Enjoying her gifts :)

She immediately wanted to snuggle in her new sleeping bag!

After cupcakes and a few gifts, we headed to one of our favorite trails nearby along the Issaquah Creek.

Both kids love to come here to dig and play in the water and sand :)

No fear of getting dirty!

There's a tiny stream that empties into the river here, and we (especially Ry and Jason) have fun re-routing it and then seeing how the mini "river delta" changes.

Maylee opened more gifts after our time outside!

Jason nicknamed Ry Ry "Bravo" and Mei Mei "Echo" from the Planes movie some time back, and we finally got them toy versions of Bravo and Echo to play with :)

Ry asked to get Mei Mei a remote control car for her birthday, and he picked out (online) this pink one :)

Yay!  Maylee was so excited about all of her wonderful gifts.  Thank you so much to all of our family and friends for all of the fun goodies for her (and Rylan too)!

Super cute after bath time in her froggy towel!!

It was a really fun, special day for Maylee and all of us.  We love our little cutie pie more than we can say and are so thankful for her, and the chance to celebrate three amazing years with her!

Maylee is Three!!

Our sweet little girl turned three on June 4!!  We are incredibly thankful for her and the joy she brings to our lives... we especially love her happy giggles that make us smile and laugh, and her pure excitement about the "little" things in life.  She loves to scribble and color with her markers, play with stickers, play with her little family in her dollhouse, and line up or make big parking lots with all our hotwheels cars and Planes movie planes.  She gives the best snuggles and bear hugs... we just love it!  She's soaking things up like a sponge and knows all of her capital letters, and many of the lower case letters.  Maylee can be very adventurous... quickly climbing to the highest spot on the playground, powering forward on her balance bike, and jumping from high spots.  But she can also be a bit shy and nervous... when we're in a new place, meeting someone new, or around a dog.  Maylee and Rylan also enjoy playing with each other more and more, and it's really cute to see the things they make up together!  She loves it when we read to her, and still loves to sit and flip pages and "read" to herself (sometimes it's the right words, and sometimes she makes up some really amusing stories!).  Mei Mei will happily wear a hair clip, but absolutely does not want to have her hair in a ponytail or braid (and takes it out right away if we try).  She loves to be outside... on her balance bike, the playground, throwing big rocks in the river near our house.  We've also recently enjoyed doing some short hikes near where we live, and her favorite thing is to run down the trail on the way back!  Some of her favorite foods are pancakes, apples, any type of pasta, macaroni and cheese, and broccoli (raw with dip).  She weighs 36 pounds and is still around the 95th percentile for growth... such a miracle for our preemie baby who weighed only 3 lb 9 oz at birth.  We love her so very much and she is a wonderful blessing to our family!!

Here are a few highlights from her first three years!

A few hours old

Six months old

One year old!

Eighteen months old

Two years old!

Two and a half

Almost three

Three years old!  Happy birthday to our sweet Maylee!  We love you!!