Tori becomes Victoria... and she turns three

Well, I survived. Tori was the world's craziest two-year-old and I made it through the entire year. Whew. Oh wait, she's exactly the same today as she was yesterday! She's still CRAZY! Well, she's not exactly the same today. Now that she's three, she wants to be known as Victoria instead of Tori. We'll just see how long that lasts.
She looks pretty much the same as she did yesterday, but I'm always looking for excuses to post more pictures of my kids so here's some pictures of her third birthday.

We started off the day with pancakes for breakfast and then sent Tyler off to school. Mom got ready and the girls and I went too the park (oh, Baxter came too). Tori got to play with her friends and thought she was having a birthday party at the park. This is very good news for me, because I didn't throw her a party. Thanks for inviting us to the park Elizabeth!

 I'm glad I brought her some wheat thins. She sat in the swing and ate almost half the box! Then she wanted to share the rest of the crackers with the other kids. A child on a swing is a hard target to hit with a cracker.

Nicole got to play with her BFF, Megan, which absolutely made her day.
After the park, we headed home for some Chicken Fries and celery with peanut butter for lunch. Tori's choice. I tried one of the fries, they weren't bad.

We raced to the preschool to drop off Nicole and settled in for some down time. Tori wanted to watch Despicable Me while I made dinner, cleaned the house, and decorated her cake. Speaking of the cake... Tori has been going back and forth for a month on her birthday theme. One day it's Hello Kitty and the next it's Strawberry Shortcake. Yesterday she decided that she wanted her cake to look like Hello Kitty, but taste like strawberry shortcake. Yikes. No pressure. So, Ben made Dinette Cake (best. cake. ever.) and I decorated it. I had to make the bow, eyes, and nose out of chocolate (luckily I still had some melting chocolate left over from Valentine's day). The outline and the whiskers were chocolate frosting. She didn't want the cake to have frosting, but I ran out of brown chocolate so that's the best I could do. The white is whipped cream (you can't have strawberry shortcake without whipped cream!!). I think it turned out pretty dang cute, if I do say so myself.

The yellow nose is actually just a drop of yellow food coloring mixed with the whipped cream. It was sad to cut it up and cover it with sliced strawberries, but it was worth it when I took the first bite. I know that the pictures don't really look like it, but she liked her cake and she had a good birthday. She just didn't smile for any of the pictures that I took. I swear, that girl is out to get me.

Too bad I didn't take pictures of her opening her presents. That was dumb. You would think I would learn. Anyway, she made out like a bandit with clothes, play dough, my little ponies, strawberry shortcake, hello kitty, and even a pinwheel. She was so excited, she didn't know what to play with first.

I know I complain about this little girl a lot. I know some of you are probably sick of it. Some of you are probably telling me to just suck it up and deal with it. Well, you know what? She was a hard baby! And, dangit, I had a rough couple of years! But she's getting better. Every little step toward independence makes my life a little better and her a little more calm. I love my little Tori Bug. She has made me a better person and a better mom. Someday I'll wish I could just sit down and play Barbies with her or listen to her sing her funny little songs and she'll be too old. I love this little girl more than I could possibly express. So, Tori, excuse me, Victoria, I am sorry. I will try to cut you some slack and stop telling everyone that you're crazy. I love you, Baby Girl. Thanks for keeping me on my toes.