And then she turned 3!

Our sweet little fairy girl turned 3 on Saturday. I can hardly believe how the time just sped by between last year's birthday and this one.

We've had an eventful year: a pregnancy, a miscarriage, house sold, new house bought, big move, all while attempting to make the changes as easy as possible on Imke.

And here we are; our little baby is not a baby anymore. She is now a real little lady, talking up a storm, making her needs known and making us laugh and giggle and causing lots of frustration in almost equal measures (but the giggles and laughs still outnumber the frustrations!).

She is such a caring little girl; she gets super upset if there is a baby crying anywhere. She tells me "don't worry, all is OK" everytime I look slightly worried, and she takes such good care of her dolly babies.

Imke is still the biggest bookworm - the best gift you can ever give her is a new story book! She reads no less than 10 books a day, first thing in the morning, at school, at lunch time, rest-time and before bed she twists our arms for "just one last more story, pwetty pwease?" :-)

She is never scared to try to pronounce new words, even big ones that might be intimidating to one so young! She does insist on a translation into Afrikaans when she learns a new English word, and vice versa. Still mixes her Afrikaans and English a lot in her sentences, but I am not too concerned as I am sure she will start to seperate the two soon.

Her imagination is quite active, which means she loves pretend play with her toys, but also means she has lots of vivid dreams and gets scared of 'monsters' quite easily. I guess with all the books we read, she sees and hears of many different things that might be scary - she calls everything that is scary "The Gruffalo".

This little girlie makes me so happy. She fills my heart with joy and wonder every day. I love every arms-tight-around-my-neck hug, every feather soft kiss, every "I love you so much mommy!", every cuddle, every "hold me tight mommy". I thank the Lord for giving Jeroen and I this little baby girl to raise and love - we are loving every moment and are so thankful and blessed to call her our daughter.