Three is a magic number

Happy third birthday to Zachary -- how the heck is he already three?! Since Z has started to have friends of his own, we decided to break things up and have two separate birthday parties this year: a pizza and cupcakes event for kids (and their parents) on Saturday, and a barbecue mostly for grownup friends on Sunday. As an added bonus, grandma flew up for the weekend and got to spend some time with her two favorite grandsons. And college friends friends T, S, and their kids M, R, and A have flown up to visit as well and were able to attend the Sunday event -- we got to have some mildly more sane time with them today and look forward to more activities throughout the week.

Last year Meh had hazzarded a guess that it would be the last birthday party where she could pick the theme. This year his desired theme was pretty obvious -- Zachary's favorite models, games, television program, and summer activity are all one and the same: Thomas. Meh did some incredible planning, compiling party favors for the kids including train whistles (fairly quiet so as to not be too obnoxious), stickers, conductor caps, and goodies. And of course some very tasty blue Thomas-themed cupcakes. She even set out to create an incredible Thomas centerpiece cake, but alas, the warm weather this past week was too much for the fondant and Meh had to give up. I caught a few pictures of Thomas in progress, and the results were really impressive and super cute - Meh is the most amazing!

The weather didn't entirely cooperate, so while we'd planned to let the kids have outdoor fun with Zachary's little house, his new balance bike, toys, and a new bubble machine, the morning and afternoon rained away. Still, everyone had great fun playing in the living room and enjoying pizza and cake. We had a few parallels to last year: Zachary again managed to sleep his way through much of the party, emerging in time to decline a cupcake and instead enjoy goldfish crackers. And he still doesn't really like other people singing happy birthday, so we skipped over that bit at the party. That apparently didn't stop him from singing it himself though the next morning, on his actual birthday:


On day two of the birthday festivities (Zachary's birthday proper), the weather improved for the barbecue, allowing for some al fresco dining. Again, somehow Zachary's nap intersected with the party, though this time around his appearance was a bit earlier on. He was a big fan of the bubble machine and enjoyed trying out his new balance bike. Happy third birthday, little man!