"Is I'm Still 3 Mommy?"

Me: Yes, sweetie, you are still 3 years old!!

Jayda: But, whyyyyyyy?

Me: Because every year you get one year older, and bigger. That's just what happens!

Jayda: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!

We have gone through this EVERY morning since Jayda turned 3 years old last saturday. Yep, our sweet little Jayda is growing up and is already 3!! She had a wonderful birthday last weekend!

To start things out on Saturday, July 24th, we got up and put her "birthday girl" outfit on. We ate a quick breakfast, fixed her hair, and headed out the door to her birthday party at none other than - Chuck E. Cheese! She was SO excited to have her party there! We got there and got everything set up and then her friends started trickling in. So many of her sweet friends and cousins came to the party, and I am so thankful and appreciative of everyone that came, including grandparents and Uncle Justin and Auntie Lourdes! Jayda had the best party and had so much fun!! At first all the kiddos got a cup of tokens and started playing games. It was so nice to have her party early, in the morning, because there was hardly anyone else there, so Jayda and all of her buddies pretty much had the games to themselves. They were all running around playing games, yelling, squealing and having a ball! After everyone played games for a while, the pizza came out and all the little ones headed over to the birthday table for pizza. I think everyone enjoyed the pizza, except for Jayda who maybe had 1/2 of one bite of it. Oh well though! After pizza it was time for yummy cupcakes and to sing happy birthday! Chuck E. came out to meet the "birthday stars" and everyone sang happy birthday. Jayda had one jumbo cupcake as her birthday cake. Thanks so much to Tara for making the delicious and such adorable cupcakes!! As a side, Tara has recently started a cupcake biz called "Peace O Cupcake" and would love to get some more orders if you're in the market. You can find her on Facebook if you'd like to order! After the birthday song Jayda got to go to the "ticket blaster". She wasn't too sure about it, since tickets were flying everwhere and it was a little crazy, but she did end up grabbing some tickets and even got 1 of the big 100 ticket coupons. She then went on to open up all of her birthday presents. She got lots of fun presents like Polly Pockets, a jewelry making kit, Snap n style dolls, clothes, nike tennis shoes, candy/money (Justin of course!), barbie dolls, coloring and sticker books, a piggy bank, hair accessories and jewelry and lots of cool stuff. Thank you to everyone that brought Jayda a present, we so appreciate your thoughtfulness! After presents were opened the kiddos went to play a little longer before it was time to go. It really was a great party and it was the perfect age for her to have a party at Chuck E. Cheese. Plus, it was really nice for momma not to have to set up/clean up the party, so, so nice!!

After the party we came home and let the girls take a nap. Once Jayda woke up, Oma, Oupa, Nana & Pawpaw were all here to have another little family party for her. She was so excited to have another party, and to open MORE presents! She opened her presents from us and the grandparents and then we had cake (a my little pony one that she picked out) and ice cream. That little girl really raked in the presents, let me tell you! She is one blessed little girl! And, so are we to have her as our daughter! We are SO proud of you miss Jayda Michelle Paschal and we love you SO much! Can't wait to see what this year holds for you!

Good morning birthday girl!


Happy 3rd Birthday, sweet girl!


Jayda's 3rd birthday cupcakes, so cute!


Jayda and Keirsten riding the Barney ride at Chuck E. Cheese.


Jayda livin' it up at her party!


Riding the monster truck!


Justin and Lourdes with Sydney at Jayda's party.


All ready for her birthday cupcake!


Jayda's sweet friend Riley having fun!


Can't forget about the little S!


Jayda's big "3" cupcake!


Jayda meeting Chuck E. for the first time, she liked him, but did not want to get too close.


Blowing out her candles!


Daddy and Jayda with Chuck E. Cheese!


Jayda dancing around on the stage with her buddies Olive and Riley.


Jayda doing the "ticket blaster"!


Jayda opening up her birthday presents at the party.


Look who got some money?


Mommy and Daddy got her new cowgirl boots for her birthday!


Put your guns up!


Jayda got a purple bean bag from Oupa, yay!


Jayda and her My Little Pony birthday cake!


What a pretty cake she picked out!


In other news, I am SO excited to let everyone know that Sydney is now sleeping in her crib!!! This is HUGE for us and I could not be anymore happy about this! For the first 3 months Sydney slept in our bed, then the next couple of months she has been sleeping in the pack n play next to our bed. It hasn't really been a problem, and we actually quite enjoyed her being in there with us, but it was just time for her to move to her own room. She is getting so much bigger and needed more space, plus she has been getting to be more ok on her own. I started putting her in the crib this past tuesday, when Jayda went away for a few days to stay with the grandparents. I thought this would be the perfect time to transition her to her own room since I would be able to focus all of my attention, time, and energy on Sydney. The first nap that I put her down in there did not go so well. She cried for a long time, but I eventually got her to go to sleep and she slept for almost 2 hours! I was very excited just about that as she had NEVER slept in her crib before! So, later that afternoon I put her down for her 2nd nap of the day. She didn't want me to rock her to sleep because she just wanted to look around in her "new" room, so I just laid her down on her own. This time she cried for only 5 minutes and then went straight to sleep, all by herself! I was SO proud! I wasn't sure how the nighttime would go. Didn't know if I'd be running from my room to her room all night or if I would need to sleep in there with her or what. Sure enough, I put her down that night for bed, she did not even cry at all and went straight to sleep and slept ALL NIGHT LONG! YAY, mommy was SO excited, I can not even explain! Ever since tuesday she has been sleeping in her crib, and putting herslef to sleep in there. She is doing so good and really likes her crib. She sprawls out, tosses and turns and gets super comfy and sleeps really well in it! I could not be more happy, plus we have our room back, so that is sure nice!

In addition, I am also very proud to share with everyone that Jacob refinished our front door last sunday! He had a lot of guidance from our awesome friend, and neighbor, Scott, but pretty much did it all on his own! We had gotten a letter from the dern HOA saying that we needed to redo our front door, so Scott and Jacob spent last weekend working on them. We are not handy people at all and would of had no idea how to do this on our own, but now we do, yay!!

Jacob sanding down our front door!


Staining the door, so proud!