What's special about today?

That's right boys and girls, it's Ella's THIRD birthday today! And I think she had a great day. We started off the morning by giving her some fun new Princess jelly sandals and getting the snacks ready for her party (veggies & dip, fruit, cheese & crackers, pb&J sandwiches, pita & hummus). Then we all piled into the car, stopped at the Burbank Ralphs to pick up her awesome Ariel cake and we were off to Sweet Little Faces (aka SLF), a play area at the Burbank mall for her party.

When we got to SLF Ella's eyes lit up because there were balloons set up already and the tablecloths had balloons on them. "Wahoon, Wahoon!" She and Lily jumped right into playing while the two SLF hostesses helped me put the food out on the tables. After that, they took over and Andrew and I just visited with everyone and had fun playing with the kids. There were 10 kids Ella's age and 6 Lily's age along with various parents and friends. The kids weren't really into the games they had planned so they brought out face painting. Well, Ella LOVED that! She had her face painted like a cat, then had a butterfly on one hand, cherries on the other. Some balloons on her wrist. THEN, her little friend Olivia wanted to paint something on her face, so Ella got a big blue splotch on her cheek. I personally think it was an abstract version of a cat. ;-)

Ella sort of had a meltdown last year when we sang "Happy Birthday" to her so we had the hostesses tell everyone we were going to just all yell, "Happy Birthday Ella" on the count of three and that worked like a charm. She's so good, she knew to try and blow the candles out right after they said Happy Birthday. It took her a couple tries to get all three. But she did it all by herself this year!

After the SLF people cleaned EVERYTHING up FOR us(!), we said good-bye to all our friends. We came home thinking Ella and Lily would both crash from all the excitement, but Ella announced she wanted to go to the "bayou" with Daddy. That's her word for any body of water: lake, ocean, pool, etc. So they went swimming. Then, she took her nap. When she woke up, she found the gift fairy had left all her birthday gifts in the living room. She started ripping into them. Made appropriate "oohs", "ahhs" and "whoa" noises as she flung the paper off each gift. She paid attention to it long enough for me to say, "We'll open up all the toys after you've opened everything up." Well that sent her into a flurry and she just opened everything lightning quick. She really liked everything she got. We took a ton of pictures which I plan to upload tonight. So please check out the "Ella's Third Birthday" album on our photo site for pictures of the entire day.

I think Ella really enjoyed her day and I have to say, having her party at the play area was the best idea I've ever had. It was so much less stressful to have the SLF people in charge of everything and all we had to do was show up. It was great! The day was also bittersweet as Andrew and I realized we would be leaving soon and we would miss all the wonderful friends we've made here very much. Ella & Lily have a lot friends here as well. It will be an all new experience starting over. We also can't believe that Ella is three years old already. She is not really a toddler anymore and she is growing up so much. Well, that ends another eventful day in the Isaacson household. Tomorrow, we have an open house again for our condo and we're off to finally see the movie Cars and sit through it this time!