Happy 3rd Birthday Jacy!

This week our little girl turned 3!!! We can't believe she's already so big! Her birthday started with breakfast in bed. She said she just wanted strawberries, and she kept coming out. I don't think she's quite old enough to understand that breakfast in bed is a good thing, not a punishment. After an otherwise normal breakfast, Jacy had to go to school. Luke went with her and Marinda drop her off because Luke was the official party planner for Jacy's party. So after picking up a birthday treat for Jacy to share with her kindergarden class, Marinda and Luke went off to get party supplies! They got streamers, cups, plates, balloons - everything we'd need for a successful party. After that, they picked up Jacy and went to get Owlette/Dashy/Skye cake from Menchies!

Marinda designed the top, and Menchies has some sort of icing printer

Before her party, we opened presents from grandparents and Luke. Luke got her a piggy bank since Jacy is now old enough to earn quarters from doing jobs around the house. Grandparents got her an assortment of Paw Patrol and Octonauts toys.

The party was a huge success. Namely, kids came, ate food, and then everyone played on the playground at the end to get their sugar highs out. We were thinking about going out to dinner, but decided against it and just went out the next night. We went to Red Robin, because we (Marinda) wanted Jacy to get sung to, and she had a blast. Luke was initially really sad, but then we reminded him that he would get a treat too and he seemed to be okay.

Success! And very little spilled on the carpet so Amit was happy!

Luke got Jacy the crown and Darcy got her the Princess Sofia doll!

Another fun thing about Jacy's birthday is that she is now old enough to go to her big kid (no parents inside) gymnastics class and her swim lessons now! She was totally ready for both of them. At gymnastics she left Marinda on the other side and didn't look back. At swim lessons, she just jumped in and was fine going on her stomach, her back, and crawling along the side of the pool. No tears, no hesitation, just perfectly willing to go with the flow. What a brave girl! We're so proud of her! Luke was also super-cute with trying to help Jacy. On the way to swim lessons he was trying to give Jacy tips on how to swim. Apparently the most important thing is the tide pools, which he explained is why the water goes from 3 ft to 4 ft to 5 ft. This is important because Jacy's not very tall and she needs to stay in the shallow part. When we were at the pool, Luke held Jacy's hand as she walked to the pool. He watched her swim for a while too before he and Amit went grocery shopping next door.

Jacy in her new gymnastics outfit! 

Even teacher Zoe exclaimed "she's so cute!" when she saw Jacy. No one is immune to her powers!

Luke insisted on getting a picture with our new star swimmer

Saturday after Jacy's swim lesson we went to our church's Easter Egg hunt! After eating brunch, the kids got to go search for eggs. Jacy was with the young kids inside and Luke got to join the older kids by searching outside for Easter Eggs the young men and young women hid. Beforehand, Luke was very concerned that he wouldn't be able to find any eggs. Everyone was told that they could get 10 eggs maximum.

This was Luke's "I FOUND MY TENTH EGG!" moment

Luke and Jacy stories:
•Jacy's hipster outfit
•This week we said goodbye to Jejema and Jejebapa. The kids were really sad and wouldn't even let us get a picture of the 4 of them. Luke is already missing Jejema scratching his back until he's asleep every night.

After enough tickles, Luke finally smiled. A little 

This is the best picture we could get of the four of them

•While Jejema and Jejebapa were here, Luke would tell Jacy a secret (this is the only time he really, truly whispers by the way) which would almost always be "let's go tickle Jejebapa!" Jejebapa, in response, would then say he was going to tell himself a secret. Luke thought this was funny. So funny, in fact, that one day he told the bus driver as he was walking on the bus "my Jejebapa keeps telling secrets to himself!"
•In week 5 of the great Misra baking show, the focus was on decoration! On Thursday, Marinda as lying in bed and she and Luke and Jacy were looking at cake ideas. Luke saw this construction cake and it was love at first (construction) site.

So on Saturday, Amit and Luke went on an adventure to get the tiny construction toys, chocolate rocks, and candy corn to make this cake. Our end product didn't turn out quite like the picture, but we're still happy with it.

The fun thing is that Luke's friend Liam was over while we were making the cake. At first he wasn't interested, but then Amit showed him a picture of what they were trying to make and he was suddenly very interested in helping decorate.

Our proud little bakers! 

We let the kids lick the trucks clean. 

And yes, it might have gotten all over her dress

•Marinda wants to do a pregnancy update. She can feel the baby all the time now, she's short of breath, and has trouble lying down. In other words, it sounds like she's in her 3rd trimester! Except she's not...not even close. She's at week 23. We're calling the baby Arcturus because we STILL don't have a name. The kids call him baby Peso because....well, who needs a reason to name their baby brother after a penguin from Octonauts?
•Lastly, here are some ridiculous pictures of Jacy. If you're wondering why for any of these pictures, there is a perfectly logical and reasonable explanation - she's three!

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Our little monkey! 

This is definitely going on the wedding slide show. Definitely