Happy 3rd Birthday Seth and Sam!

Seth and Sam’s birthday was on Saturday—which was awesome, because Ben could be there all day with us! Just the four of us spent a slow morning hanging out, playing, having the boys’ choices for breakfast (puffy pancake with bacon) and lunch (hotdogs), and opening a few gifts. One of our traditions is to buy them each a book for their birthday; this year’s books were, "What People Do, by Richard Scarry, and Read Aloud BIble Stories, by Ella K. Lindvall (some of our favorite library now to own!). We also had the boys “open”, i.e. find in the trunk, their presents from us: a scooter and a bike (we’ll now have 2 bikes for the boys so they can ride together). They were pretty excited about their gifts from us—and we were really excited about giving them!

Friends and family joined us in the afternoon to celebrate Seth and Sam’s 3rd birthday. My sister has 3 girls, and the Gowen’s have 3 kids as well, so, yes—8 kids 5 and under. It was a blast! The kids played in water, we all ate pizza and cupcakes, and the kids played with lots of new toys. What a special day shared with special people.

The boys wanted pizza for dinner and red cupcakes with strawberries and sprinkles on them for dessert.  

A guitar I found at a garage sale for Jeff and Diane to give the boys ended up being a HUGE hit. Now they won’t have to use train tracks as their pretend guitars anymore!

An almost disaster: one of the new remote control cars was drove straight into the hole by the grates. Luckily Ben-Long-Arms was able to pull it out!

And every good birthday ends with a wrestling match:

Oh, and a big melt-down because they are SO tired, SO coming off a sugar-high, and SO not wanting to share their toys, even with daddy. (And like every good mom, I took pictures of the tears).