Nella Joy,

Even typing out your name is a reminder to me of how bright and beautiful you are (“nella” means “shining light”), and also how much real happiness you’ve brought us. You create joy every single day for us with your nearly incessant giggles, laudable funny faces, and goofy jokes. A Mister Rogers’ quote that describes our time with you so perfectly comes to mind: “You’ve made this a special day, by just your being you.”

We call you Nellbells, Nellie, and Nellie Bellie.

You are such a petite little thing, standing at 2ft 10.5 in tall (5th percentile) and weighing 24.5 lbs (below the percentile chart). You wear a size 7 toddler shoe and 2t and 3t clothes. I still carry you pretty easily, and I love that you’re still little enough to cuddle.

You have deep blue eyes and the craziest blonde curls. We all say you look like a Norwegian baby.

You are talking so much now, and I love hearing your little voice! You are making sentences of several words, and it’s just fun to hear what you’re thinking. You don’t say “s” or “c” sounds yet. You do have a hard time pronouncing a lot of things, so sometimes, we can’t understand you very easily, and you get so frustrated. You have several words that all sound like “bah-bull”, and that can get really confusing for us. We’re trying, and I know that you’re just going to get better and better at it as this next year goes on.

Speaking of language, you are my most-willing toddler/preschooler at learning French. I’ve gotten you to count up to 4 (“un, deux, trois, quatre!”) and you do it on your own often.

We’re starting preschool with you this school year. I can’t even believe you are so so big already. I just know you’re going to love “doing school” like your big sisters do. Kaya has already started teaching you animal names, numbers, and letters by doing puzzles with you.

You don’t usually like having your picture taken. Sometimes, you’ll give me a really great grin, but it’s completely random.

You love your sisters and mama, but you are most definitely a Daddy’s girl. If he’s around, he’s all you want. He gets to help you do everything when he’s home because you wouldn’t have it any other way. I love it when he makes you laugh.

You adore singing and ask Daddy to sing you Twinkle Twinkle Little Star every night at bedtime. Your sneakers even have stars on them, so you call them “up above the world so high” shoes. You are obsessed with the moon and look out your window before you lie down to see if it’s visible. If the moon is not there, you are always disappointed and say “no moon”.

You still take a nap every day, and up until these last few weeks, you were sleeping for about 3 hours each afternoon. Now, I sometimes catch you playing when I go in your room to put Eve down, and you instantly dive onto your bed, hide your face, and pretend to sleep. You do eventually pass out, but then you don’t want to get up when nap time is over. Silly.

You’re a good eater sometimes, and other times, you’re really picky and only want to eat if we help feed you. You really love yogurt, taco salad or wraps, spaghetti, and pizza. Your favorite fruit is definitely clementines, and you really love mini wheats and a muffin for breakfast in the morning. You ask me for Goldfish (“blub-blubs”) all the time! You also really love lollipops and will ask me just about every day for “a pop?”, although we really save them as treats. If you get an extra-special treat, like a donut or a cupcake, you will only eat the frosting and leave the rest of it, even if it’s chocolate. What?!

We finally potty trained you, about a week after your birthday, and you were the easiest learner by far. I can count the total number of accidents you had (and only in the first two days) on one hand. We waited so long with you because you had a lot of tummy troubles and had to be on Miralax for many months. I didn’t want to force you into potty training because I thought it’d be too traumatic… and I’m so glad we waited. We still put a diaper on you for sleep, but you wake up dry most of the time. You’re a rockstar, and you LOVE wearing your Elmo undies!

You’re a pretty independent kid. You’re completely content to play on your own for almost the entire day. Your favorite toys are baby dolls and Calico Critters. You take care of your babies and come up with little stories for your Critter families. You just love mommies, daddies, and babies so much. You often pretend that anything and everything is a mommy, daddy, or a baby (sippy cups, forks, you name it).

You often ask to be the “helper” when I’m preparing a meal, and once I say “yes”, you drag a chair over to the counter, and usually you start eating whatever is there. You seem to think that grazing before the meal is helping, which I find hilarious. Sometimes you really do help by putting all the muffin liners in the pan when I’m preparing the batter.

You call your pinky your “baby thumb”, and we just think it’s the cutest thing we’ve ever heard. You usually say “my baby thumb hurt” when you want a bandaid.

You make these hilarious “grumpy”/serious faces all the time. Your Great-Auntie Joyce says I used to make the same ones all the time when I was little.

You’re a rule follower. If you think you did something wrong, you hide your face in your hands or under your arms and don’t come out for awhile. Sometimes, we can’t figure out why you’re hiding or feeling bad. We call this your “turtle shell”.

You are absolutely obsessed with Elmo, Daniel Tiger, Moana, and Frozen (“Ro-Ro!”) right now. You stop and point them out any chance you get. We were at the grocery store yesterday, and you found probably every item in there that had Frozen characters on it. I think your one true love is Hei Hei, the chicken from Moana. You want to paint or color him over and over again, so you’re always asking me to print out another page for you. If you’re not decorating your Hei Hei paper, you’re asking to watch the movie. I’m planning on making you a little plush Hei Hei you can snuggle.

You have quite a little collection of stuffed animals now. They are all your favorites and have to sleep in your bed every night. You have Bowie the black dog, Rawr-Rawr the dragon, Star the Unicorn, Elmo, Hoo-Hoo the owl, and Baby Doo Doo the shark. Then, there are your ultimate favorites, Beagle and Baby Beagle.

You are genuinely so funny and silly that you make us laugh all the time. I hope you’ll always be a little (big!) goofball.I love you so much that my heart often feels like it swells up, and I get a little lump in my throat sometimes. Before you were here, when we were waiting and praying and wishing for you, (although it was not as long as many other strong mamas have to wait), sometimes my heart physically hurt wanting you to be here. I still remember it so vividly at times. You have filled that empty space with so much love now. I couldn’t have even imagined how wonderful you really would be, but you were worth the wait.

I hope you’ll always keep laughing, keep dancing, and just being who you are. You are one magical little girl.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Princess!