Three!

Nathan turned 3 last week! I can't believe it. (Yes, I'm already saying, "It seems like just yesterday....")
Over the summer, he finally started answering you when you asked him how old he was. He would answer, "I'm 3!" This started in about June, but I figured in just a few months, he actually would be 3, so it was pointless to correct him. This year, Nathan finally "got" what a birthday is. I think he caught on when he helped me make a big deal for Paul's 30th. So when we told him we were having his birthday party on Friday (four days before his actual birthday), he was excited.

We had Nathan's party together with his cousin Mackenzie's party, at Power of the Past. We figure that all of our family is there anyways, with everything set up for a cookout, so it's easier just to take the party there. (And no house cleaning for me!) We ate supper, and the kids blew out the candles, just in time for a huge crack of lightening right above us. We packed up the whole party and moved it to the church. It ended up not really doing anything, but we didn't want to take the chance being under all those tall trees at the park.

The cake was a collaboration of efforts. It was Lurenda's recipe, which I baked and set up. Paul put the "siding" on, while I worked on the "shingles". Lurenda put the animals in the barnyard and piped on the doors and haymow.

Blowing out the candles (which Nathan hasn't figured out yet) at the park, right before the storm broke up the party.

On Tuesday, for Nathan's real birthday, we kept it pretty low-key. Paul and I couldn't figure out what to get him. We looked at some toys, but nothing really struck us as "right." We talked about working some more on his play house, but don't have the money to do much. We ended up getting him some balloons and a water balloon filler. I thought that was kind of pathetic, so I wrapped up some glitter glue pens that I'd bought for something else. Paul still thought it was pathetic, so when he went in to town for some errands later, he picked up a little bulldozer and dump truck (he's recently really been interested in construction equipment) at WalMart (we hadn't went there to look).

Balloons and presents first thing in the morning.

(BTW - NEVER getting balloons at WalMart ever agin. At the dollar store, they are (duh) only a dollar, and they fill them right there, so no more half-deflated balloons.)

Decorating his own "Happy Birthday" poster.

Lunchtime cupcake. I'm so lazy (ingenius).... The cupcake was leftover cake from the barn cake that I'd had to trim off to make the roof. I stuffed it into a cupcake tin and topped it with leftover frosting. And a leftover candle.

We took the boys to McDonalds for breakfast, with the promise of playing on the big slide. However, because of a rain storm the night before, they wouldn't let us go out there (tears ensued). So we took the boys to the park instead. All the people walking their dogs at 8:30AM looked at us like we were slightly off to have the boys out there already. But it was nice and cool, with no other kids to fight for the swings, or throwing rocks.

Altogether, it was a pretty low-key birthday. And that's what I want for our family. Days are special, not because we have huge parties, or spend lots of money on presents, but because we make it special by spending time together and being happy for each other.