Perrin is 3!!!!

   

     We have a three year old! The past year was certainly a little challenging as Perrin has become much better at self-advocating, but it has been so fun! His personality is best described as a whole lot of sass with a side of sarcasm, and a heap of goofiness. He went from barely stringing words together to having entire conversations, making up stories, and telling jokes. We've had a lot of adventures over the past year and he's definitely hit a lot of milestones, but here are the highlights:

- He has continued his swim lessons and is now in the "big kid class", where the 3 year olds start going to class without parents. He loves swimming and has just recently become incredibly comfortable in the water.

- This year we got to see Slipknot, Disturbed, and Shinedown in concert. At Slipknot he got to go back stage and meet the band and get an epic picture with Corey Taylor. We have tickets to Rage Against the Machine in September and are considering Blink 182 as well.

-Speaking of music, he still loves Slipknot and Taylor Swift, but he is also now really into Beyonce, Katy Perry, Disturbed, and Shinedown.

-He nursed today, on his third birthday. He has gone up to 13 days without. I'm pretty sure this is the beginning of the end, but I don't know when the "last" time will be. I intend to write a whole post about our weaning experience in the future.

-He is still one molar shy of a full mouth. Poor kid has been dealing with teething for 28 months and still going.

-He's about 39 inches tall and 34 1/2 pounds, if the vet scale at the children's museum is accurate.

-He loves to go hiking and go to the desert musuem. He knows a lot about different kinds of animals, plants, and rocks. He's also REALLY into picking up litter right now.

-He's still in our bed with us, although he does go back and forth between his little bed in our room.

- He loves to read and right now really likes And Tango Makes Three, the Eric Carle books, Caillou books, and one's with a little mouse named Maisie.

-He started at a nursery school in January and goes 2 days a week. He loves it and talks a lot about his friends there and sings songs he learns.

-His favorite color is blue.

-He loves to eat pizza, broccoli, croissants from Starbucks, and sushi.

-He really enjoys his animals and helps to feed them and let Fender in and out and look for chicken eggs.

-This year he got to visit Memphis twice, went to Phoenix twice, and vacationed in Seattle, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. He seemed to enjoy Seattle the most and talks about living and working there.

- He has lots of fun playing with his friends Isaac, David, Taeo, and Luna.

- He is having a construction themed birthday party.

-He went to his first two sporting events this year- U of A Football and U of A baseball. Bear Down!

-We had a rough patch around 26 months where he was getting physically agressive with other kids, and then at around 34 months where he started having some intense tantrums. Now we are just in the whiney phase!

-He loves building with blocks, playing with his toy farm house, doing puzzles, and playing with his cars and trucks.

-His favorite places to go are Playformance, the Desert Museum, Pump It Up, and the zoo.

-For his birthday, we had Starbucks for breakfast, went to Pump It Up with his bestie, stopped by Target so he could use his birthday money to buy a toy he's had his eye on, looked at his baby pictures together and went through his birth story, and later we will open presents and eat his requested dinner of artichokes and toast.

   I'm sure there are so many more things I could tell you about Perrin, but you might as well just come visit us and talk to him yourself! He loves to chat and meet new people and will definitely give you a way better impression than anything I could say. I've heard three year olds are quite the handful, so we are entering this year with a bit of apprehenshion. But knowing Perrin, I'm sure he'll at least keep things interesting!