Life as a 3 year old

I've been a little MIA around the blog lately. And I have a couple of really good excuses.

First.. Christmas break. It was amazing. It was relaxing. It was fun. It was much needed.

For the first week.

The second week? Long. Agonizing. Torturous. Cabin Fever. So.Much.Fighting.

You know it's gotten bad around here when I can't even form coherent sentences anymore.

And to top it off the Monday they were supposed to go back to school (Ella's birthday and the day I planned on writing a really nice birthday blog post for her) school was cancelled due to near -50 degree windchill temps. I honestly spent every day of the entire first semester agonizing over the desire I had to pull the boys out of public school and home school them. If Christmas break proved anything to me it was that I think I can give my mind a rest over that subject now.. Thank you teachers.

Second.. Sickness. So.Much.Sickness. Like I said.. the first week of Christmas break was great. I was deceitfully lured into the idea we were all wisely using this time to get healthy and rested up and recharged. Nolan was on the mend from his 8 hour ER trip and things were going well. Until this week. When, at any given moment, from any single one of us, we were dealing with a delayed allergic reaction to medication (Nolan), what we thought were hemorrhoids that actually are possibly a staph infection (Charlie), diarrhea (I won't say who because that's embarrassing.. JJ), impetigo (Ella), and 4 agonizing days of untreated, undiagnosed strep throat (me). *discreetly reaches for the Lysol wipes. Although power washing the entire interior of our house with bleach is sounding more enticing by the minute. Spoiler alert: You can't trust everything you read on the Internet. Thank you Dr. Google for advising me that me brutally sore throat that hurt mostly when I swallowed and didn't have white spots on it wasn't strep throat. Guess what? It was.

Anyways.. it's been awhile since I posted and a lot of big things have been going on around here.
The biggest of course is that our little Miss Bean is THREE!

Life as a 3 year old starts out, of course, with cake.

Actually.. the day really started at 1am when Ella decided to wake up and not want to go back to sleep until 4.
Who could wait any longer to get this party started??

Ella is obsessed (understatement) with ducks.

There are lots and lots of babies.

who have very cozy beds.

Think we can transition Ella to this bed so Hudson can have the crib??

Three year olds know how to do somersaults,

contortionist back bends,

and how to slide the trampoline over to use as a stool so they can play air hockey with their big brothers too.

Three year olds are big enough to ride bikes,

and apparently 3 year olds like to spend a lot of their time naked too..

and lounge on the couch with our very-outside dog that mommy brought inside when it was so cold out because she couldn't stand to see her shivering on the porch any longer.

And the grinch's heart grew 3 sizes that day..

give the guy an inch and he takes a mile.. after 1 night JJ is now convinced we have a full time house dog
Who.. as I type at 1:30 in the afternoon, is still in the exact same spot she was when she came in at 9:00 last night.

And the best thing? 3 year olds LOVE to take baths. 

WHHATTT?? 

Yes. You heard it here folks. 

Ella, for the first time, now actually likes her bath.

Yiipppieee!!!

Life as a 3 year old is pretty good. As long as we can get rid of this strep/staph/impetigo/allergies/diarrhea stuff...