Princess Tacy Turns 3

My sweet little Tacy turned 3 this past week!  It is so crazy when I just look at pictures from a year ago to see how much she has changed.  We moved to North Carolina a week before Tacy's birthday last year so this year in general has been a lot of change.  I have decided that 3 is one a child is no longer a baby and is officially a kid.  This past year Tacy's hair has gotten so LONG.  Her talk is getting so much better, with fewer instances of trying to translate what she is saying.  Tacy has very definite favorites now.  Here is a list of Tacy favorites as of right now:

Color: Orange

Princess: Ariel

Food: pancakes, strawberries, peanut butter, ranch

Outfits: Dresses

Shows: Diego, Dora, and Daniel Tiger

Movies: Tinkerbell or any disney princess (Ariel, Tiana, cinderella are the big ones right now)

When asked what princess she is: Ariel

Mom is always Prince Eric

Dad is usually Prince Phillip

Sometimes Mom or Dad are "Ursula the Sea Witch" 

Tacy has a very avid imagination.  She can play by herself really well by talking with her Barbies, Princesses, etc.  When Dad or Mom are asked to play with her, Tacy usually tells us what to do or just takes over completely (she just got some Disney Princess figurines and will give us one and then usually within 5 minutes she has reclaimed the one we were supposed to play with and will play with all 7 by herself).  

Due to her imagination, Tacy got several dresses to play dress-up in for her birthday.  She loves them.

Tacy's favorite song to sing: I Am a Child of God (but she still loves Taylor Swift and Shake it Off)

When driving Tacy loves to tell the driver to turn songs up (the ones she likes like Taylor Swift, Maroon 5's Sugar, and then just random ones).  She also is always telling me to stop singing (I sing in the car to music all the time).  Haha she can be bossy.  

Tacy is very observant.  She loves to point out all buses, motorcycles, airplanes, and big trucks.  She also can tell you how to get to her friend's house who watches her every day and knows when we are within 5 minutes from home.  

Tacy is shy when there are a lot of little kids around and is clingy.  Once she warms up she is okay, but she really is best with smaller groups of kids (the warm up process is only minutes then instead of days).  Yes, this trait did come from her shy mom.  Tacy is not so shy with adults and has more adult friends than kid friends.  No worries though, she is still shy to strangers.

Tacy loves swimming (unless there are "snakes" aka waves).  She also loves parks.

Tacy loves to read books and loves the library just as much as her mother.  She also loves to help Daddy play his video games (she will sit right by him and tell him what to do or get a controller and sit next to him).  There are always bad guys that need to be fought - whether we are talking real life, a video game, a movie/story, or just pretend.  The good guy/bad guy concept is really making sense for her.

Tacy loves to imitate animals, particularly frogs and dogs.  Sometimes she insists of hoping to the car like a frog.  She also likes to say that she is baby and then makes her imitation baby sounds.  

Tacy loves to pick out clothes for the whole family and likes to help with meal planning.  Her ideas do get veto'd a lot otherwise we would always be eating pancakes, pasta, PB&J sandwiches, and pizza for dinner.

Tacy does still suck her thumb.  She loves to be a big kid and so she is going to be sleeping in a big kid bed now (goodbye to Toddler bed and more room in her room).  Tacy still has tantrums and loves to put off bed by not getting jammies on and "one book" quickly turns into requests to read every book on the book shelf "just one more book Mom".  She loves to bargain.  We love our little miss.  Yesterday she was wearing her princess backpack and told me that she wanted to go to school.  "please Mom, can I go to school?" Brad told her we needed to record her saying that and show it to her in 10 years when she does not want to go to school.

Adventures in Drought Land

Tacy has been very excited to fly on an airplane so she was pretty ecstatic about our trip to California to see my family.  Our flights were all red-eyes so I was really worried about her getting sleep.  Tacy was fascinated by the airport(s), seeing the airplanes and she loved being on the plane(s).  The first flight she was awake for and it was only an hour.  As soon as we sat down she was jumping around talking about how we were flying.  She was really excited about take-off and when we landed she looked and me and said "Mom, can we do it again?!"  Flying to California was the hardest because the seats had monitors and the row in front of us did not turn any of their screens off while they slept, so the glaring light from the screens bothered all of us.  Tacy struggled with falling asleep and only managed to sleep maybe 2 hours.  But we made it.

Time zone changes are hard, and it's even worse when you fly all night so you are already behind on sleep and your body tells you shortly after landing and finally getting into bed, that it's time to wake up.  But we managed to all get clean and take family pictures.  All my siblings were in town and together for the first time in 2 years.  I was so glad that family pictures only took maybe 30 minutes.  The photographer just focused on what my mom wanted and got the pictures with the little kids done fast (Tacy was itching to go play on the playground).  I'm also glad that Tacy and Kayleigh (my niece) could meet a few hours before pictures.  They bonded pretty fast and Kayleigh loved to watch and follow Tacy.

Friday we all drove up to Lake Tahoe were we stayed in a cabin/house.  Lake Tahoe had great weather for July!  The highs were never above 74.  This was wonderful, but not great for swimming.  So we waded into Tahoe, we went on a hike in a meadow, and we played mini golf.  Every night the adults played games while the young ones slept.  I lost Settlers of Catan every game, but I still managed to have fun even if Mark did a great job and ruining whatever I tried to do.

We went back to Rocklin on Sunday and went to church which is always fun to see my old ward and talk with people I have not seen in years.  It was nice because Brad's dad happened to be in Northern California for work, so he came by to see us and go to Sacrament Meeting with us.  Tacy was a little shy and did not want to hug him but we were glad we could see him.  My aunt and her 3 boys came to Rocklin that day to spend time with my parents for a few weeks, so Tacy was pretty funny coming to get Brad and I and saying that she was shy around her friends and needed me there until she was comfortable enough to play with them.  My aunt's twins are only 6 weeks older than Tacy, and after warming up to them, Tacy had fun bossing the twins around and playing with them.

We did go to Fairytale Town on Monday to give the kids all something to do.  While it was a little boring for us adults, Tacy loved it!  There were lots of slides and things to climb on, animals, and a pirate ship.  Tacy loved spent a lot of time on one slide (I think because she was the only kid for the majority of the time) and a lot of time at the pirate ship.  She loved steering, looking for treasure, and locking Robyn, Brad, and I up in turn.  I just love her imagination.

Brad and I had a couple of food places we had to visit: Jamba Juice, In-n-out, Don Quixotes, and BJs Brewery.  We went to Jamba Juice 3 times, In-n-out twice and the others once.  We also took advantage of having a Shane Co close to my parents to get my ring cleaned and re-plated (there is no Shane Co within 6 hours of where we live).

These two are just so cute together!

It was nice to see family, swim in my parents pool, and get to finally meet our cute niece Kayleigh.  We had a little birthday celebration in Tahoe for all the August birthdays in my family: Steven (8/3), Kayleigh (8/7), Tacy (8/8) and my Mom (8/11).