Nora Is Three!

Nora turned three years old this weekend. We drove to her Spanish grandparents' house in Mondragón and had a party at their Centro Extremeño, a cultural center and social club for emigrants from the Extremadura province of southern Spain. Nora was quite wowed by all the presents and attention. She gets a lot of presents and attention throughout the year, but this was definitely a more special day. She got many dresses, and a doll, a wooden bowling set, and a Hello Kittyâ„¢ digital camera, which is iPhone-shaped, so she calls it her "mobile". The digital camera was her favorite gift, which I'm proud to say came from her loving parents (it was marked down from 70€ to 20€!!), but her second favorite gift, the bowling kit, was more fun to play with in the wide open space of the cultural center.

Bowling is hard. Perhaps the rules should be revisited?

Her first innovation to the game of bowling was realizing that a straight perpendicular line is much easier to hit than a triangle of pins.

Her second innovation was to drastically reduce the length of the bowling lane.

Dresses! That thing that says "RANO" is a set of individual chocolate bars with the letters of her name.

Her birthday cake. Zorionak is "congratulations" in Basque.

I love cake photography. Even more than cake.

I had been coaching her all morning about how she's going to have to blow out candles. The moment has arrived!

Huff and puff and…

Blow!

Yay!

A doll and crib.

Feasting with family.

Here's your piece, dear blog reader! Enjoy!

Happy birthday, Nora! I love you more than I can put into words. It's kind of hard to believe that you didn't even exist just a few years ago. This last year has been my favorite year so far, and I feel as if I'm really getting to know you. I'm very much looking forward to continuing our lives together. Happy birthday, my love!