Third Birthday!

This weekend was Z’s party! This year I decided to have a fun party that would require little to no planning on my part, you know because of the whole new baby thing. Well, I guess you have to do some planning, which I did, like the invite.

and the party favors

{insert picture here}

oh yeah forgot to take a picture, but darn, they were cute. They were bags of “Z’s favorite things,” paraphernalia from Dora, Super Why, Mario, Cars, sport bouncy balls, and skittles (his favorite candy).

The cake

 

Made with love by Publix Bakery (very cute, but their icing is weird to me)

and you can’t forget the outfits


But treetop did ALL the rest, and we had a blast!

We did have a bit of a crisis because Z went to a treetop party for one of his school friends the weekend before and climbed to the top of their indoor playground (one of the chosen attractions for his party) and did not want to come down via the dark slide method (the only method), so he stood up at the top and cried for one of us to get him, which is pretty uncharacteristic of him, so he must have been pretty scared. The tough decision was whether we should change our attractions or chance him facing his fear at his own party. He was wearing a cape after all. Unfortunately, we decided to keep it the same and Nick had to rescue him several times, but this time no tears. I still think it was an okay decision because everyone else had fun and he still got to go bowling, which was what he was wanting the whole time anyway. And, everyone seemed to enjoy the bounce house and slide.

 

The cape came quite in handy for my little flying Super Z

 

It also made him quite brave

Being that we’ve been to treetop several times now, I had to foresight to ask if we could have the outside pavilion for pizza and cake.

That turned out to be a clutch decision because Z couldn’t have loved having the entire group sing ‘Happy Birthday to you’ to him any more, as you may tell from these pictures.

I’m talking, he ate it up! Literally!

 

I’m thinking the icing didn’t taste too weird to anyone else.

 

The way the party is set up, after the two attractions, pizza and cake, everyone is free to play in the arcade. It was great to look around and see all of our friends having fun playing the games, or staring at them or climbing on them as in some cases.

 

After that was over, we took our turn at the go-karts. That was definitely an interesting sight!

It was a wonderful party. We loved celebrating with family and friends. Z-man, you’re the best and we love you so much!

Lu’s Checkup and Such

Lu had her 4 month checkup on the same day as Z’s 3 year check up, 2 birds with one stone and all that. She did fairly well. She wasn’t a fan of the ear check and the shots really ticked her off. She was already stretched out when we laid her down, then when the nurse stuck her, she was like a board, she flexed those legs and arms out and screamed loud enough for the whole town to hear! Thankfully, she recovered pretty quick, and besides some fussiness on Sunday, she did pretty well.
I attempted to give her some tylenol, but the new formulation requires her to take 2.5 mls, which is a lot of tylenol for someone who’s only ever had breast milk. Just sayin'. Most of it ended up on her bib, so I’m not thinking that helped too much.
My standard on the table shot, but this time, I had to rip my phone out of Z’s hands to get it (and she’d already been felt up as you can see on her face and belly).

She weighed 12 lb’s 11.5 oz’s and was 25.5 inches long (25th and 80th percentiles, respectively)
She has had a pretty bad runny nose and an adult sounding cough. She’s finally started sleeping better though, and I was glad to hear that she didn’t have an ear infection or anything like that.
Besides her 4 month regression, she’s sleeping great, and many times is asleep by 6 or 6:30 (I don’t remember Z ever going down that early). She can stay up later without it affecting her too badly, especially if she takes a late nap. That comes in handy on the weekends.
She’s discovered her feet, which is some cuteness, although I can remember her messing with her feet on her 4D ultrasound, so I think she knew they were there the whole time!
She tried out her exersaucer for the first time the other night, even though she’s already tried one at school. She looked tiny in it, yet so big!


Z is so sweet with her. He still wants to hug her all the time (except when he’s sick and I tell him that he can’t hug her or she’ll get sick too). The other day when I was dosing up her tylenol for the doctor visit, he said, “That’s Lujayn’s medicine. He’s sick, I’m not sick.” But now he’s on antibiotics for what the doctor thinks is a sinus infection and he’s saying “I’m sick now, the medicine make me feel betterrr.”
I finally took a few minutes to take some new pictures. It was quite a funny sight.

“I can share, baby sisters?”

It is NOT easy to get decent sibling pictures, and I don’t know why I can’t get Z took look at the camera

Oh well, you do what you can and leave the rest to Heather Swanner ;)

I’m 3 Now!

The expression I heard all day on Thursday. I love this birthday because he finally knows what it means, but I also slightly dislike it because he finally knows what it means. On Thursday, he was sure he was headed to his birthday party when really he was headed to school. Thankfully, Nick was on drop-off duty so he handled that situation, but from what I understand it was not pretty.

I am so thankful for my big three year old. He is so hilarious, sweet, loving, and darn cute, if I do say so myself.

Thursday afternoon, when I got to his class, he was sporting his construction paper birthday hat with a 3 on it (which he called a crown, because he remembered it from the year before), and shouted hooray! when I walked in.

He got a treat in the car, then after dinner this cookie cake, which Jude proclaimed was the best cake he’s ever had!

He blew the candles out like a pro and opened his presents from his Nana and Tata, a why writer (which he hasn’t put down since he got it),

train whistle, airplane, spiderman pajamas, and by far his favorite, his Super Why! Costume.

We mistakenly let him try on the costume Thursday night and when it was time to take it off we witnessed the greatest meltdown of all time. Needless to say, we have hidden the costume now but really canNOT wait to get it out on Halloween (or possibly before for events like Boo at the Zoo).

I had to explain that Super Why! fights with knowledge, not brute force.

He’s not interested in knowledge.

We had his 3 year old appointment Friday, and everything looked good. He was SO excited to go. I can’t really think of why unless it’s because he remembers going to OB appointments with me, which were usually followed by visits to the mall for Chick-fil-a, cookies, and other pregnancy/toddler delights. Incidentally, they had 6 shots between them, so there were some fried delights to follow (for me and for him).

He weighs 31.5 lb’s (60%) and he’s 38 inches tall (70%). He got 2 shots! I couldn’t believe how well he did though. He insisted on sitting up and watched them stick him, and he didn’t even cry or complain.

Afterwards, Lu had her 4 month stuff done (a separate post on that later), and they took Z to get his popsicle. Next thing I know, he’s out in a chair with one nurse feeding him a popsicle and the other helping him put his stickers on. Is he spoiled or what?

So from now on, anytime he acts up, we just remind him that he’s “three now!”