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It's been a weekend of birthday parties for several 3-year-old friends! On Saturday, I took the boys to friend E's third birthday party at her house. They had a great time playing with the many toy vehicles present, as well as going in and out of E's very fun (and excellently repurposed large appliance cardboard box) homemade playhouse. Oh, and O got bit by the electric model train bug; E's mom had just gotten her dad's set up and running, and he spent a good 45 minutes downstairs nicely watching and then operating a model locomotive, buffering it up to a couple of freight cars and throwing track switches like a pro to get it back on the mainline for a few loops.

Sunday was an O-only affair for friends' R and M's son J's third birthday party. (Mima got to have some alone time with Z, which they both enjoyed thoroughly.) I wasn't quite sure what to expect, as the invitation indicated "sports" would be played. It turned out to be an excellent organized activity where a coach teaches the kids some basic sports skills in a non-competitive super fun environment. O was incredibly into it, helping with various cheers and then going full tilt whenever the physical activities commenced. Here he was in the opening run-around-the-perimeter activity, showing excellent form:


There was an obstacle course, some basic basketball skills (practicing throwing a ball through a hula hoop), baseball base running and bat swinging skills, and (my personal favorite) they closed out with each kid in turn chasing down a rolling hula hoop:

It was great to see O get so into an activity, and he was talking about the sports he participated in the whole drive home, "Well, my favorite was the basketball... but we didn't have time for the tennis" (I presume the coach had mentioned this to them as something they'd run out of time for). Anyway, a thoroughly busy and fun weekend for both boys, and now the idea is planted to consider getting O into some kind of sports activity (perhaps even the Sportball classes they have that inspired R and M to make it J's birthday theme?) this summer.