Sadie is 3!

Our baby girl is 3!! What a huge year for Sadie. Between 2 and 3 is such a huge change - she has gone from a toddler to a little girl!

Of course the biggest thing that happened this year was that Sadie became a big sister! She is a really loving sister and is so helpful, changing Macey's nappy, getting her toys to play with and trying to make her laugh. And it comes with the territory but we've also had our share of rough and tumble moments - and it's just the beginning! But seeing how much Sadie loves Macey (and vice versa) makes the tough moments so worth it.

Sadie has had so many fun adventures since she turned 2. We snuck away for a couple of nights to Rotorua just before Macey was born and had so much fun spending time with the 3 of us. We went on the gondola, swam in the hot pools and just had a really relaxing couple of days. Sadie also had her first sleepover at her cousins house, playing with her friends, going to Playcentre which she has started to really love and we spent lots of time at the beach over summer, swimming, building sandcastles, eating ice cream and spending time with our family. It was also the first Christmas where she really got into the whole thing and really understood what it was all about - it was so special and exciting!

Right before Macey was born we moved Sadie into a big girl bed in her new room - her "girl bed" as she called it! She was super excited and still shows people her room and bed when they come to visit (even if they've seen it many times!) Unfortunately when she moved into her bed she also dropped her day sleep but we started bringing her bedtime earlier which has been pretty nice. And then around 2 ½ we started giving her quiet time in her room when Macey was having her afternoon nap which has been working really well - it gives her some down time and means I get a little bit of quiet time too! Sadie also took it upon herself to toilet train before Macey was born (just what we needed!) but she did so well!

Sadie's favourite things are reading books (SO many books!) doing puzzles, playing with her farm animals and fences, going on the farm with Dad, snuggling and "rockling" (rocking) Macey, her doll Chloe (a present from Macey when she was born) and being outside. She loves her family and friends, is such a caring girl and absolutely loves helping me in the garden. She also loves the paddling pool, jumping on the trampoline and helping feed Sage, the chickens and collecting the eggs.

Sadie is so incredibly smart, speaks extremely well and has an amazing memory for things in great detail, even from several months earlier. She can recite big parts of her favourite books and loves reading them to Macey. She asks lots of questions and always wants to know more - one answer is never enough and she always knows when we are not giving her all the information. "What to do?" is one of her favourite questions that comes in response to almost anything we say!

She is very curious, still takes a while to warm up to new people and situations but once she is comfortable is very outgoing and confident!

Sadie still eats almost anything and when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday dinner she said "carrots!" followed closely by chicken and mushroom pasta.

She is also learning to speak her mind and challenge us (ha!) with all the typical toddler things like brushing her teeth, getting ready for bed and is always trying to squeeze an extra story out of us at bedtime.

We didn't have a big birthday celebration for Sadie's third birthday as we had just come out of Level 4 lockdown so were still limited to gatherings of only 10 people so we had a nice family dinner with Josh's parents and then celebrated with my family the following weekend.

It has been so much fun watching our little girl turn into her own person and a protective and loving big sister. We can't wait to see what the next year brings!