First up, we have our local St. Patrick's Day parade! This was the first parade we've taken Zooey to where she really knew what was going on. It was quite a momentous event.

And this is what she was so excited about.

And here was MY favorite part of the parade. Pretty clever, guys.

Most days we let Zooey pick out her own outfits, so sometimes she looks like this.

Other days she transforms into Ms. Fancy-Fancy. (Notice she's actually wearing TWO skirts here. Because sometimes just one foofy princess skirt isn't enough.)

Collecting Easter eggs in the back yard. Plus, candy! Sweet, sweet nectar.

This past week Zooey's Uncle Ryan came up from Austin to visit, and he brought her a fabulous pink and purple bike with training wheels. She was super-stoked about it. She went pretty slowly at first, but it wasn't long before she was cruising around and doing turns on a dime. Thanks, Uncle Ryan!

And lastly, here's what happened on our last trip to Target.

Zooey: (putting on mask) I'm Superman!!

Me: Not exactly, honey. :)

Three. Years. Old.

Unbelievable.

Zooey turned three on Tuesday, but we held her party on Sunday afternoon so that our out-of-town relatives could make it. As you can tell, it was a Caillou-themed party. This is because Caillou is Zooey's favorite fictional character in the entire universe (as well as all other possible universes). We had a personalized Caillou banner, Caillou cups and plates, an adorable Caillou t-shirt (which you will see very soon), and an appropriately themed cake made by yours truly. The girl was beside herself with excitement. The presents were just the cherry on top.

Here she is waiting oh-so-patiently for the guests to arrive.

Check out the fabulous party outfit!

The cake! Yes, I did make it. I couldn't find a Caillou cake pan anywhere (and I even consulted the INTERNET!), so I baked it in a star-shaped pan instead, iced it, and then placed an edible cake topper in the center. I then piped the yellow border and dropped the sprinkles on. It was quite a hit.

Opening presents with characteristic whimsy and flair.

Does it look like she's strangling Clifford here? Kinda looks like she's strangling Clifford.

And......roller skates!! This may have been the big winner of the day, and it came to us courtesy of Grandma and Papa Joe.

Exhibit A. I should add that she picked this up incredibly quickly. We all anticipated a pretty steep learning curve, but she must have better balance than either Nick or myself because within a few minutes she was cruising around, going from carpet to wood surface and back again. She fell a few times, but she was undeterred. I was very impressed.

Here she's wearing the floppy Tom Petty birthday hat and playing with an awesome Uno barn game that my mom and dad got for her.

...And now we've switched to the Viking helmet, "for safety."

Just in time, too.

Playing cards with Aunt Laurie.

Grandpa, Clifford, and Papa Joe chilling on the couch.

Our little roller derby queen.

Here are a few shots from her birthday proper.

I let her choose her own outfit that morning, so we got a striped hoodie, her party skirt, the birthday hat, and a panda backpack. Two words: fashion icon.

Thanks to everyone for making Zooey's birthday so special!

So the night before Christmas, my parents came over for our traditional dinner of cheese, crackers, and Chex Mix. (It's delicious, don't judge.)

Afterwards, we descended on the tree and let Zooey open her presents. What she's got here is a great drawing board with a magnetic pen.

The second gift was this little baby doll. When Nick took it out of the package he forgot to remove one of the strings on the back, so Zooey thought it was an ornament and immediately hung it on the tree.

This is an awesome floor keyboard that was given to Zooey by her Mamow and Peepaw. (Remember the one in the movie Big? It's like a home-sized version of that.) It's got different settings so the keys can sound like different instruments. Super cool.

Playing with several toys at once. And why not? It's as decadent as the late-era Roman Empire around here.

And checking herself out (with Penguin) in the Christmas photo.

Christmas! Christmas Christmas Christmas! The big day finally arrived, and with it came an insane amount of enthusiasm from a certain little girl we know. First thing in the morning the three of us had a gift exchange in our jammies. Here's Zooey opening The Snowy Day, one of my favorite books from when I was little.

Then we went over to Grandma and Papa Joe's house. Here's Zooey having a chat with Grandma and Boo Boo. (Grandma and Papa Joe are in the process of moving, so that's why there's a bit of clutter in the background.)

This is the first of two tea party sets Zooey received. She used the container for this one as a watering can and went back and forth across the living room pretending to water the furniture. Pretty cute.

And then she got this sweet Razor mini-scooter, which she proceeded to race around the house for a couple of hours. I was amazed how quickly she caught onto this! She'll have a motorcycle within the year, I just know it.

Both Daddy and daughter fascinated by the train.

And here we're having a milk party (she insisted on pouring milk instead of tea) with Grandma and Penguin.

By this point, it was becoming obvious that both Zooey and I were coming down with colds, so when we came back to Lawrence we only went over to my mom's house for a few minutes. While we were there, though, Zooey received this awesome homemade pillow from my talented Aunt Judy. Check it out! It's covered with penguins! Aunt Judy also made the adorable apron she's wearing.

Zooey was SO excited about this pillow. Here are a couple of shots of her cuddling up with the fabulous penguin pillow.

This is the first year that Zooey has really understood what was going on with the Christmas decorations, traditions, etc., and she has been extremely excited about all of it. First of all, we set up an advent calendar in the living room, which dispenses toy frogs and bouncy balls and chocolates and the like. Zooey likes to go over to it about 40 times a day, asking us if she can open another window, at which point we have to explain that the Advent Monster only visits once a day (not true) and that the other slots are empty until the day they are opened (they're actually all full now...don't tell her, please). We also introduced her to the idea of Santa, although I'm not sure she fully grasped the concept. I suspect she's thinking of him as some kind of tv character like Caillou or Cookie Monster. (And for some reason she seems to think that a visit to Santa consists of driving a fire truck.) And then, of course, there's the obligatory Christmas tree. She was SO excited about the tree. Her shrieks of delight while we set it up began at a normal pitch but ended up in a whole crazy register that Nick and I could no longer hear because we're old or possibly because we're not dogs.

She had actually calmed down a bit by the time we took these pictures, but believe me, the crazy glint is still there in her eye. Oh yes, it's still there.

Taking a break from putting up ornaments to hang out with Daddy (and the Grover puppet).

In other news: last Saturday we took Zooey to the local library to check out a book for the first time. We went to the children's section, naturally, and she rifled around in the board book bins until she found one she liked. She ended up selecting "The Foot Book: Dr. Seuss's Wacky Book of Opposites." I think it's a solid choice.

Right away she adopted the slouchy, don't-bug-me-I'm-reading posture. Doesn't she look like a moody teenager here? I'm thinking of starting her on The Hunger Games next.

We took Zooey downtown this weekend for the annual trick-or-treating extravaganza. The merchants stand outside and hand out candy, and the kids go from shop to shop until they have a veritable mountain of candy in their bags. This was the first year that Zooey was really aware of what was going on. Especially the principle of "Say slogan, receive candy."

Here she is, practically beside herself, and we haven't even gotten out of the house yet. ("Costume!! Candy!! Costume!!")

She makes for a very scary (and fabulous!) werewolf.

I love this one. By the way, Nick took all of these pictures, so if you're wondering why the quality is so much better than usual, that'd be why!

She was intensely interested in the other trick-or-treaters. Thankfully, she wasn't quite old enough to be spooked by some of the freakier costumes. (This is Lawrence, after all. Freaky is our bread and butter.)

Scoping out the candy haul.

At one point Zooey bolted from the line and made a beeline for this merry-go-round. We kept trying to lure her away with the promise of more candy, but she would not be deterred until she had ridden each one of the horses.

This last one's kind of blurry, but I'm including it to show what the full outfit looks like. The big red bow up by the ear? I sewed that on. Also the heart patch on the knee. Cause werewolves can be fancy, too.