Busy!

We're in full party prep over here. Gia's 3rd birthday is on July 27th and her party is this weekend. Much more to come on that. For now I've been busy making lists, food shopping, cooking, assembling goody bags and delighting in the overwhelmingly excited almost three-year-old that is Gia. 

   The mantra goes something like this: "Mommy, I'm 2, but I'm gonna be 3 in a couple seconds." "It's my birthday and we're gonna have a party!" "There's gonna be a petting zoo with animals in my BACKYARD!"  "All my people are gonna come and bring me presents!" All of these are said in a high-pitched squeal. It's really freakin' hilarious. And adorable. She's just so happy about everything.   

  And then, of course, there's the heat. We've been spending a lot of time indoors. It's just too hot for this pregnant mama to be outside for long. The most I can handle is going from the house to the car to a store. Thankfully, Gia has gymnastics camp and swimming lessons, so she's able to get out and be active, despite my inability to deal with this weather. Hope you're all enjoying the summer!

Make-up Maven

Gia is such an awesome combination of traits. I never want to forget all the little things about her that make her uniquely her. 

 Gia is kind of a tomboy at times--she can run and jump and play with the best of them. She likes checking out worms in the driveway after it rains and she doesn't mind getting dirty.  Yet, she can totally be a girly girl. She loves hair bows and jewelry and lately, if it's not a dress, she's not wearing it.

   She also loves to watch me putting on my makeup in the morning. I have a 5-minute routine that I do every day and, as soon as I'm done with it, she loves to take the big brush I use for bronzer and do herself up. When she was a baby I could just give her the brush. Now she knows there's nothing on it unless you "dip" it into the "that black thing with the makeup".    The other day she was watching me put on mascara and she was fascinated--more than usual. I told her she had to wait till she was older to put makeup on her eyes. She said "ok mommy" and skipped off.   And then, the next morning I was on the phone with my mom. Gia was watching tv and Jon was outside watering our plants. And this happened:  

Gia decided she didn't want to wait till she's older to wear mascara. Or TONS of bronzer. In this next shot you can really see the job she did.

The best part? She didn't see anything wrong with her handiwork. In fact, she was mad when we found her & told her makeup time was over, because she wasn't finished. She goes, "But I didn't get to do the other eye!"

  Gia, my dear, there will be plenty of time for you to "do the other eye".    

Carnival

Gia absolutely loves carnivals and rides. The weather this past week has been spotty--they predicted thunderstorms nearly every day. So, we didn't tell her we were planning to take her to a local carnival until the very last minute, just in case we got rained out.   An hour before we were going to go Gia came up to me and said, "Mommy, let's go to Yadi's house. Not now. Later."   I told her that Yadi wasn't home but there was somewhere fun we could go. She looked at me and waited. "Do you want to go to a carnival?" I asked. "A carnival! I can go on rides and see the animals!" She was so excited. It was awesome. From the moment we got there, until the moment we left, Gia was in rare form. She was wild with anticipation. Rides! Games! Food! Animals! She didn't know which way to turn and was just buzzing with energy.   We went to the petting zoo first.

Then she asked to ride a pony. 

(Side note: This isn't the first time Gia has been on a pony. She rode one at a farm in Florida when she was about 20 months old and she wasn't too sure if she liked it or not. Then last year she rode a pony at the NJ Meadowlands Fair and liked it more than the first time.  About a week ago, out of no where, Gia announced, "I've always wanted to ride a horse."  It was so funny at the time. Ever since, she's been talking about riding a horse, hence the extreme happiness in the photos you're about to see!)

Finally, she went on some rides.

Her favorite ride was this huge bouncy slide thing. It was 3 tickets for 3 rides. We gave the carnival lady our last 9 tickets and just let Gia go up and down a bunch of times. She was in heaven.