Today Abbie GAVE HERSELF her first haircut! 

Christian, Abbie, and I were doing some cutting homework with child-safe scissors at the dining room table.  After finishing our cutting project I started helping Christian with his Chinese homework leaving the scissors laying next to us on the table.  After a few minutes I heard snipping noises coming from the playroom.  I realized Abbie had taken her scissors and thought I would discover her snipping away at some paper in the playroom.  I was going to scold her for cutting without me, but NOTHING prepared me for this...my sweet little girl's hair all over the floor!

I completely lost it and started freaking out/screaming/crying!  Greg came rushing downstairs to find out why I was hysterical.  He tried to calm me down, but I was in such shock!  I knew Abbie's hair would be cut someday, but it was just so sad and shocking to me that her beautiful little blond locks were laying all over the floor.  Greg scolded Abbie and she started crying.  We asked her, "Why did you cut your hair?"  Through tears she stammered, "I wanted to make my hair pretty."  It was hard to scold her after that innocent little statement.

Abbie's hair was pretty messed up after her personal haircut.  She basically cut off the majority of her hair in the front giving her extra long bangs, so I really didn't have much choice but to take her to a barber to get it professionally fixed.  I cut Greg and Christian's hair with clipper guards, but doing a real haircut with scissors is out of of my league.  So I called a friend, got a recommendation for a nice barber shop that does a good job on kids cuts and walked into the barber shop.  Thankfully we only had to wait a few minutes and a wonderful barber refined Abbie's haircut. 

She loved sitting in her little pink mini cooper.

Abbie was excellent during her haircut.  She followed all the barber's instructions and never cried or complained in the slightest.  He basically tapered the Abbie-made-bangs into the rest of her hair, trimmed her hair, and then layered her hair.  He then asked Abbie, "Who should cut your hair?"  "Just you should cut my hair" she answered.  YES - Good Answer Abbie! :)

Greg surprised with a beautiful bouquet or roses and a special little book for Valentine's Day!  The Christian Lover is a collection of love letters from believers throughout history including Martin & Katharina Luther, John & Idelette Calvin, John & Lucy Hutchinson, Adoniram & Ann Judson, Martyn & Bethan Lloyd-Jones, and more.  It's been sweet and refreshing to read these sweet Christian couples interactions with one another.  I'm so grateful for my sweet husband who knows me well and surprised me with such a thoughtful and special gift! :)

In celebration of Abbie's 3rd birthday we had a fairy party!  For months Abbie has been enthralled with Tinkerbell and all her fairy friends, so we knew this was the perfect theme for our little fairy lover. 

On Saturday afternoon Abbie received the Tinkerbell Fairy costume she had been asking for every time we entered the Disney store at the mall.  She hasn't wanted to take it off ever since. :)

We transformed our home into Vruggink fairy land with dozens of fairies hanging from the ceiling and lots of fairy treats including "Fairy Fruit Wands," "Fizzy Fairy Punch," "Fairy Jewels," and sandwiches shaped like hearts, flowers, and butterflies.

As the little girls arrived each received fairy wings and were sprayed with pixie dust (body glitter).  Abbie tried to show everyone her scrapbook, but most of the girls understandably wanted to watch the Tinkerbell movie instead.  Christian even joined the fun, but explained he was a Terence, the sparrow man (boy fairy) who delivers the pixie dust to all the fairies.

The girls (with the help of their mommies) created little fairies using pipe cleaners, wooden beads, thread, and silk flowers.

We sang "Happy Birthday!" and Abbie blew all three candles out BY HERSELF on only two tries!  We were all very impressed! :)

As soon as Abbie's guests left she dove into her pile of birthday presents!

Happy 3rd birthday sweet Abigail Hope!

Abbie turned three on Friday!  Below are the pages I added to her scrapbook to review her 2nd year of life.  (As always this just took me three evenings to complete doing my Scrapbook Plan - you can scrapbook too! :)