Evelyn is 3!

 My BABY is three!

 (big, big, sigh...)

That's right, Evelyn Jane Lucille has turned three years old on April 23rd.
As usual, we celebrated it up all.day.long.  You only get one birthday a year after all.
Our day started early so we could bring Nathan to school.  We then came home to brush our hair and (ahem) get dressed.  The birthday girl got to choose her breakfast.  The conversation went like this:
Me: Evelyn, what would you like for breakfast?
Addie:  Doughnuts, you want doughnuts.
Evelyn: Doughnuts.

So, off to our fave local doughnut place, Flyboys!

Evelyn went for the frosted cream-filled sprinkled doughnut!

We then spent the rest of the morning shopping for her upcoming party on Saturday.  We shopped all of Target for almost two hours, but had a fun time.  Shopping without a time limit or major agenda can be surprisingly enjoyable!

For lunch we grabbed a couple of Lunchables and ate at home.
I'm fully aware that so far my girls have only eaten junk, but you can do fun things with a cracker and cookie!

She was in a really fun mood (which will happen when you get what you want I guess).  She also picked out her flower dress (with a tutu on underneath) for her birthday outfit.

The day turned out to be much warmer and sunnier than forecasted, so I decided to renew our family pass to the zoo.  We hadn't been there for almost a year, so it was fun to go again.

There wasn't a lot of action at the zoo yet.  

Here Evelyn  is looking at a goat.

I'm sure she was making some adorable comment here, but I don't remember what.  She also chose the hat to accessorize for going out.  

Lovely.

The zoo is conveniently located about 3 blocks from Nathan's school.  So after about an hour at the zoo we left to get him, then came right back again!

Nathan's such a boy.  Here he requested I photograph him fighting this bear.

(Nathan has a little Dwight Schrute in him, if you've seen The Office you know what I mean.)

Then Ella wanted to also show off her bear fighting skills.  

Nathan was very clear that Ella must fight the smaller bear.  Only he was brave and strong enough to fight the big bear...

More goats.

Wingspan:  Nathan's comparable to a red-tailed hawk.

The kids were then playing on some small statues.  I didn't ask anyone to pose, I just simply told them I was going to take their picture.  I like how each one's personality came out!

Sweet, goofy Evelyn.

Spunky, independent Addie.

Charming, lady-like Ella.

(7 going on 17.)

and , Adventurous spirited Nathan.

I'm noticing that all of my photos are with statues of animals.  Like I said it was a slow day at the zoo!

Last stop before we left was to lay in a fake egg and pretend to be a baby bird.

We went home to meet Matt, then promptly left again for birthday dinner at Qdoba.

This is what three looked like after doughnuts, shopping, the zoo, and dinner out:

(Ok, it's what thirty-three looked like as well)

We had a small group meeting this night with dear friends from our church, so the fun didn't stop!  Our friends who hosted were very sweet and decorated their house with balloons and a birthday banner just for Evelyn (I wish I would've taken a picture!).  

We brought cupcakes, because you can't have a birthday without some cake!

The last half of our day was so full that Evelyn didn't even open her birthday packages (Nathan didn't want to miss out on it, so we didn't do it earlier in the day).  

She did open her gift from Nathan, Ella, and Addie though!

She was very excited to open their gift, and it was fun because they were so excited to give it to her.

(It was a sippy cup and bottle for her baby dolls.  She loved them!)

Wow!  

As you can imagine she slept well her first night as a three year-old.  

She had a day of recovery, and then it was time for her birthday party!