Happy 3rd Birthday Dakota!

Way back on April 6, Dakota turned 3 years old! It's so hard to believe that our little Arkansas-born, free-spirited, blue-eyed beauty is already 3! She is so much fun and keeps us on our toes with her abundance of energy and fearless ways. Her favorite food is Macaroni and Cheese, she loves to play baby dolls and get dressed up in princess costumes with dress-up shoes, and cannot stay clean for more than about 30 minutes. She adores her big brother and still claims to be "Mommy's girl" (although having Daddy home a lot more is slowly changing her). She just completed a year of tumbling through our city's parks and rec department and LOVED her "nastics" nights. This summer she is enrolled in swimming lessons and dance and plans to take a horseback riding class with her brother.

Her birthday fell on a Saturday this year, but it also happened to be drill weekend, so Daddy had to work. She got donuts for breakfast and Jason and I chose one present for her to open first thing in the morning (Daddy wanted to see her open gifts, so we chose a present that we already knew what it was since he was going to miss it). For lunch, she chose Mac and Cheese, then Daddy was home in time for dinner. She picked "Chick Place" (Chick-Fil-A) for dinner and we let her choose one of her gifts to take to the restaurant to open. When we got home from dinner, she opened the rest of her gifts and we sang "Happy Birthday" and ate birthday cake!

The birthday girl not cooperating for a birthday picture.

Super cute birthday outfit from Memaw, but the birthday girl would
not stand still to get a good picture. 

The present she got to open the morning of her birthday.
A princess tent from Jamie, Nick and the boys!

Beautiful birthday girl at "Chick Place"

The present she chose to bring to "Chick Place" to open!

A pink pillow for her big girl bed - from Ouma and Oupa!

Back home after dinner, here is all her loot from grandparents in Kansas, aunts, uncles
and cousins in Kansas, and from Mommy, Daddy and Bubby.

She LOVED her mermaid card from Aunt Ninny, Uncle Austin, and
Pagey. It plays the theme song from the movie.
We are still listening to this card in mid-May.

Ariel!!! She takes her in the bath and loves to brush her hair over and over.

Disney Princess castle Play-Doh set from Bubby!

Looking cool in new Minnie Mouse shades from Grandma and Grandpa Hager.

Minnie Mouse swimwear from Grandma and Grandpa!

The other half of her Bitty Baby from Memaw and Papa Schu. She let Bubby name him. He chose, Jack.
So she has the twins: Abby and Jack. Along with two Bitty Babies named, Sally and Ali.

Disney Princess keyboard from Mommy and Daddy.

So, I decided I really wanted to do a doll cake for her. I remember the year my mom made a doll cake for me and thinking it was the most beautiful cake I'd ever seen. I planned to make it for just us, but I still wanted to take my time on it to make it look nice. She begged for a pink cake, so I found a doll that resembled Aurora and set off to make a Sleeping Beauty cake. I did lots of research and looked at several pictures before coming up with a plan. I didn't spend an entire day on this, but I did put several hours into it. Once I had finished (about midnight the night before her birthday), I put it in the fridge. I decided to show it to her the next morning and her reaction was priceless. She loved it and kept saying how pretty she was. She was a little disappointed that we had to wait till Daddy got home from work to eat it, but she didn't push it.

Later that morning, Dakota came to me and said, "What tongue is mine?" (Which means, what color is my tongue?). I said, "Pink! Why is your tongue pink Dakota?". She matter-of-factly stated, "I ate my cake!". I ran to the fridge to discover the cake with several finger swipes out of it. She had also eaten all the frosting off her shirt, so there sat a topless Aurora with a tragic looking skirt in my fridge. I had saved a little frosting (you  know, just in case I needed a little pick-me-up snack late at night. You keep frosting in your fridge too right?) and tried (somewhat unsuccessfully) to patch her up, but she didn't look near as pretty as she had. Oh well, she loved the cake and it tasted great.