Happy, Happy Birthday, Ethan Dear!

I contemplated posting a long and detailed account of the day Ethan was born, but I thought I'd spare everyone the traumatizing details and suffice it to say that 3 years ago yesterday, Ethan entered our world! This weekend was turned into one long birthday celebration, seeing as to how the birthday itself fell on a Sunday.

To start it off, Friday evening we went to Toys R' Us to let him pick out a toy for his birthday. After being distracted by the train table for about half an hour, I finally pried him away and made him pick something out. I guess the train table inspired him, because the toy he picked out was a little Thomas the train engine. Having procured the birthday present and pulled Grace away from the Care Bears, we successfully left Toys R' Us with the train and only 2 treats from the checkout! Ethan was so absorbed in his peanut M&Ms that he didn't notice when I took the train out of the bag to hide and wrap for later. (which by the way never happened -- he ended up opening it up on Saturday to play with it before I had ever gotten around to wrapping it).

So, on Saturday we spent the morning at Grandma and Grandpa's where Ethan got an awesome watergun for his birthday, and in the afternoon we ventured back to the water park. It was the only thing that he has been asking for for his birthday for the last several weeks. So, as much as Scott and I hate the water park, we took him and he had a FABULOUS time.

We had decided that we would do the cake and singing of the birthday song on his actual birthday, so on Sunday when we got home from church, Ethan helped me make his pink cake. Yes, you heard me right. For the last couple of weeks whenever I have asked Ethan what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, all he said was a pink cake. I couldn't get him to change his mind as much as I tried, so using a white cake mix as the base, I let Ethan add a ton of red food coloring and voila! A pink cake. (And in case you were wondering, Grace wants a green cake for her birthday, according to Ethan. I'm so glad that he can read her mind).

However, with Grace still taking a nap and Scott having to go back to Church to do his calling and stuff, Ethan was forced to postpone the joy of blowing out the candles until everyone was here. Fast forward to 7:30 PM, and we finally managed to get outside to the backyard to tape the ceremony! After not being able to light the matches for several minutes, we finally managed to light the candles and sing the song and eat the cake. I've posted several pictures of the goodness that followed (keep in mind that this is the very end of a very long day in which Ethan never took a nap). Enjoy!

Here's Ethan sharing his bounty (he helped me make the chocolate frosting for the cake).


Waiting for those darn matches to light

Still waiting

Yay!

Ta da! The pink cake

Here's Grace doing a pretty good job with a fork...

And here she is finally just digging in with her hands.


The beginning of the end...

Whew! What a day. I'll close with one last picture of my little lamb.

This weekend must have really worn him out! Here he is today where he actually fell asleep at naptime (surrounded by his treasures) for the first time in about a month.