My Baby turned THREE!

     I cannot believe it's been three years since Raelee was born. Man, this time has flown by! She is so big now, I love having conversations with her, listening to her sing in the backseat of the car to Taylor Swift, and playing pretend games. The newest has been our house being a jungle, complete with jungle animals. The couch is a tree, the stairs are a mountain, the sink a water fall, the shower is a cave that has a waterfall in it, the rug is the river, complete with alligators. It's so funny watching her explore the jungle and take pictures of all the animals lol. Her personality is so sweet and fun. Brad and I love having us some Raelee in our lives. We decided to just do a family party this year, thinking it would be a bit more stress free, which is was. Raelee summed it up in her prayer tonight "thank you for my lots of family". It's always so fun to have my family and Brad's family get together, I think we mesh pretty well. We had a bonfire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows  because Raelee LOVED doing that when we went camping and talks about it all the time. Our theme was very loosely owls( the girl loves owls) and my dad made her an awesome cake. Very realistic. and tasty. Raelee also received many blessings in the form of toys. I think we might be able to skip Christmas gifts this year. Just kidding. I already feel bad enough about having her so close to Christmas. I was a little sad that Raelee didn't get a shout out on Sprout, but otherwise I think she had a pretty great birthday. Enjoy the pics :)

She hasn't quite gotten down holding up three fingers yet.

Santa Claus came to town

I don't have the pics yet, but on Saturday Raelee met Santa Claus. For the very.first.time. Bad mom award right here, my child's about to turn three and has just now met Santa. For some reason in years past it just hasn't worked out and I know the reason. My co-worker(and very close friend)'s husband Steve is Santa for the hospital parties. My unit also used to have a fabulous family party at their house and then Santa would come in and bring toys to all the children. I'm talking serious Christmas magic here. Carol sadly has had some health problems, so since Raelee's been here we haven't been able to have the party. Steve makes such a legit Santa that I really, really, really wanted that to be the first Santa Raelee met. Sooo long story short(lol) it finally happened this year. Raelee was so cute, she was super nervous standing in line. Afterwards when Santa left, he made his way through the room and told Raelee bye(hey it helps to know people in high places, a mom can't get much better then being personal friends with Santa). My niece Makenna was there too, so we were able to get a picture of the cousins on Santa's lap. Makenna showed how smart she is, by trying to revel Santa's identity to the rest of the children when she tried to pull his beard off! We then went to the mall and Raelee ended up seeing Santa there, and then that night at our ward's Christmas party she saw Santa again! So my thoughts are, that seeing Santa 3 times in one day makes up for not ever seeing him before right?

Out of the mouths of babes...

Raelee cracks me up with her sayings and other times she strikes me with her knowledge. Today's Raelee quote:
   Raelee "Where's Daddy?"
   Me "He's at work".
   Raelee "Oh...so he can make money and buy me toys".
My two year old understands a concept that so many in our country do not. She understands that you can't have the "toys" without the work being done. Now how do we go about teaching this basic principle to the grownups who just don't get it?
     On another slightly related note,we went with my younger brother to Chick-Fil-A today while he dropped off his app. When Raelee was saying her prayers tonight, she prayed for "Matt-matt to get the job at chick-fil-a." This was awesome to hear because she's been saying repetitive prayers for awhile now, and every night I tell her to think about her day and pray about it to Heavenly Father and then she'll say the same exact prayer. This was the first time she's changed it up. So here's hoping(and praying) that Matt gets the job!