three

she's three! she turned three, and it snuck up on me. she looks so old there, compared to when she was two. but i feel like she's the same person as when she was two... we did all that traveling, life got speedy, i was pregnant, had a baby... who knows how it went by, but it seems like she was *just* two and so how can she be a different person? also, she could talk then, and do so much of what she does now, so though she changed a lot, it snuck up on me. just look at those photos! she was such a baby at 2, though i thought she was big. i'm sure i said that last year too, and i'll say it next year.

i love that it's the same pose though, sneaking into her cake (the same hummingbird cake -- here's her earth ball cake from this year.) she's taller, clearly -- can reach the table a bit easier -- and the other big difference? oh, i spy a baby sister in the background this time around. :)

last night i was holding hazel and she was wearing a sleeper that (somewhat cheesily) says all over it "if they could just stay little" in tiny print. it's subtle, so you don't read it every time you see it -- but i read it and then remembered having read it when eva wore them three years ago, and how it made me sad then. oh, time. it keeps moving.

speaking of that, i have a lot to say that never gets put here. i try to catch up with one-liners but then ramble on, so here's yet another attempt at one-liners:

hazel's been half-sick half her life -- congested the past several weeks, then got eva's cough. oh, preschool! eva was never sick as a baby, now is always half sick, and poor hazel gets it all passed down to her. we might take her in tomorrow to make sure she's okay before we fly to california on saturday (for the ewing reunion). hazel is chunky and starting to coo a bit and smiles -- sweetly at eva, which made me so happy.

eva has an imaginary friend named charlie that she tells us about daily. often this takes the form of trying to process her own experiences, or sometimes just entertainment, or sometimes cute little fibs (we've hit that stage, as i mentioned before). there's also amy, but she's not as prominent as charlie is -- oh, and we often hear about charlie's cousins. the little snippits about charlie are so cute because they are so telling about what she's thinking about her life. i never remember to write them down, but i should.

we went to jackie's wedding in dallas last weekend. both girls did well on the 4 hr drive each way, and eva *loved* the reception, dancing the night away. she danced in larry's arms, fell asleep, he sat down eventually, and she woke up and insisted on more dancing. i danced with her until she fell asleep... this repeated several times, and she made it all the way past midnight.

working backward... before that lora and julie and lilly were here for two weeks. that was so much fun, and i'm still sort of getting over the fact that they're gone. we did a ton of stuff, more than you'd think considering we had a toddler and two babies with us at all times. eva keeps talking about how much she misses lilly and her aunts.

eva's been in school for 10 weeks now, and seems to love it. when i drop her off, she simply turns, asks to give hazel and i each a kiss and a hug, then says says bye. when i pick her up, nowadays she's generally playing with other kids, seemingly integrated into the community there, making friends. and that newfound outgoing nature is either a result of school or just the age she's hit, because it extends beyond school -- today at the pool she was talking to various random kids, and just as often, their moms. (to the point i end up trying to distract her, lest the moms tire of talking to a random toddler.)

though today i was amused to hear one of these moms saying (as i chatted nearby), "oh really? your friend charlie has a floatie like this?" charlie. little do they know...