3rd Birthday!

Saturday was our preschooler's 3rd birthday! We had a low-key day followed by a party with family. He was very excited to see the balloons and streamers in the morning. And his baby brother was captivated by them.

These balloons came later in the day.
"I'm hiding in the trees!"


Playing outside before his party.


The party started with dinner! He loves his dad's breadsticks. His dad also grilled ribs & corn. It was all delicious!


Waiting to open gifts.
Maybe it's just because it's a full length shot, but I feel like this picture shows how grown up he's getting.


He got 2 different star projectors. The other is also a lantern and he loves to carry it around as a lantern.


Putting together his crane truck.


Baby brother was very tired and between gifts and cake my big sister took him up and put him in bed. I felt totally guilty for not taking care of my tired baby personally, but also love that everyone else took good care of him and that he was okay with my big sister putting him to bed.


Cake!



He picked the ladder to eat, and his brother picked the slide.


While everyone was eating cake he suddenly decided he was going to eat the bench and plucked it from the cake and ate it :)
Here he's making dino footprints in the stairs and slide.


He seemed to have a good day! I love my fun and loving little boy!


A week before his birthday the only cake requests I'd been able to get out of him were yellow (vs chocolate) and "circle" which I assume is because his dad had recently had a birthday and had a bundt cake. So I made some suggestions once again - robot? barn? circle? rocket? stairs and a slide? And this time he said: "2 slides, stairs, a ladder, a bench, and a dinosaur."
Me: "dinosaur? what is he doing there?"
Him: "playing"
His dad: "and a swing and a sandbox?"
Me: "swing??!!"

He requested his dad make vanilla and strawberry banana flavored ice creams, and he requested the ice cream be topped with cream and a cherry. A couple weeks ago he made his ice cream selection at Friendly's by choosing the picture that had cream and a cherry. I'm sure it's because of the cream and cherry from the toy kitchen. We got our toy kitchen free/used and it's a piece that was randomly in there, separated from whatever set it came with. And it's one of his favored pieces of play food.