Making his cake & tasting it too!
The crew making their train cars
Ky working hard on his train car
Ky loving the end product....Yeah I think he ate a bit too much of the train car accessories, but the boy had fun--and what a memory!
He picked out part of the cake (ate it ouf course) and called it a door--for his animal cracker??
Adam with his engine
Liz with her caboose
Daddy with the rainbow coal car....after a make over
Birthday boy waking up
We found a friend in the backyard. He named his toad Marty,
B'day boy with G'ma Jan
Showing Ms. Carol his toad
With Wendy
Alaina with Dad
The assembled cake & getting ready to sing!
The anticipation building!
Alaina's need for ice cream
Nana helping Ky read his card
Opening presents
Happy with U. Adam
A great visit with U. Adam & A. Liz
The new swing set. Ky likes swinging like Super Man!
The new Rock Box!
Swing set with Rock box and new planted grass! All that is left is to build the platform attaching the swing set to the playhouse and put up the slide!
That is right! My little boy is 3! I cannot believe that it was over 3 years ago that he came into our world and changed our lives forever--for the better of course--though I do miss my sleep!
With the busy week and weekend prior to Ky's party, we actually made the cakes on Thursday night and then froze them. Ky and Daddy made them together. He picked the flavors, chocolate and strawberry. I borrowed bread pans from some friends (thanks Krissy & Judy!) and baked 6 loaf shaped cakes. The plan was to make a train cake for Ky. The week prior I had shopped at Woodman's and stocked up on all types of candies & junk to decorate the cakes with.
Adam & Liz were coming Saturday afternoon, so I knew that with their help we could each decorate a train car and put the cake together for the Sunday party. Saturday was a dreary day with lots of rain and it was cold. After a quick dinner of pizza, we put the little lady to bed and got busy on our trains. We made icing in a variety of colors so that the train would be colorful. Adam, the artist, was assigned the engine, Liz --the caboose, Daddy--the coal car, Mommy & Kylan-random middle cars. Kylan definitely had the most fun out of all of us decorating his train car. (Though we had lots of fun laughing at Rob's attempt at a coal car--don't be deceived by the picture above, prior to that the car was all brown with brown and more brown--it looked kind of like a shoe with wheels--so then he added some white frosting on top of the chocolate frosting and some colors and things started to look much better!)
Ky picked blue frosting for his train car, I did help him frost it--but after that he had free reign. At first he spent much of his time just eating the different candies, but then he got more into the spirit of things, shoving candies here and there, declaring them windows & doors and of course passengers. He was bouncing in his seat he was so hyper from all the sugar. Towards the end he started poking a big hole in his cake and eating it. He said he was making a door. (Makes sense--the passengers have to get in and out of the train, right?!) A few added animal cracker & gummy bear accessories and we declared him done. It was time to get sugar crazy boy to bed--and boy was he sugar crazy---here we have always tried to watch how much sugar he eats--but with it being his b'day we let him "have" at it.
We all had fun finishing up our train cars. They did look pretty fun & yummy! I couldn't wait to put them together the next day to see the end product. I have to say for novices--we did a very NICE job!
The next morning the birthday boy was ready to get up and get going and he was one very happy 3 year old! It's his birthday after all. We had a very yummy breakfast of pancakes & sausage (his favorite) and then got to work getting the house ready for the party. With the wedding & family reunion the days prior, we had to leave all these details for his birthday morning.
I mowed the backyard & was very excited to find a toad. We never had toads in our backyard before, but this year we did. (They especially like to nest in the mulch by the spigot.) I caught the little guy and carried him to the garage (of course he peed on me) and put him in a little bug cage that G'pa had bought Ky last year. I then presented my little present to Ky. He was SO excited!
Ky named the toad "Marty" and carried him around for much of the rest of the day (until cake time that is!)
Family & friends showed up around 2:30 and we all had a nice time. Ky was definitely the center of attention--and why not with those beautiful blue eyes and dimple and freckles (yes my boy has gotten freckles from me--they are finally showing up this summer--see he does have something from me after all!)
Around 4:30 we grilled burgers, brats, & veggie burgers and feasted. I was grateful to have had the extra help from Liz & Adam--it really made this party a lot easier to pull off.
My favorite part of the party was the cake. Right before guests arrived, Rob, Liz, Adam & I carefully assembled the cake on it's Twizzler tracks. We even decorated the landscaping with some trees & signs from Ky's train set. It looked pretty good--though next time I would not make the track curved--it made it a little hard to get good full pics of the train.
We lit the candle and got ready to sing. You could see how elated Ky was. I really hope he remembers this b'day--though 3 is pretty hard to remember. He then got to eat some of his cake, which of course he enjoyed (and already knew what it tasted like from the prior night.)
In the meantime we got out ice cream to serve with the cake. Alaina saw the box of ice cream and started screaming. She instantly knew what it was (I don't know how since she only had ice cream one before on Memorial day in a cone.) She knew what she wanted though--so we succumbed and gave her some ice cream. She was then a happy girl--in between spoonfuls that is. If you weren' t moving fast enough she was yelling for more. Yeah--she definitely has her mother's taste buds.--which I got from my mother. Ice cream there is a family inherited gene.
After that was present time. He tore through them pretty quick--and got a little angry when Alaina wanted to help. He was pretty polite though overall--he hugged and gave kisses and said thank you. I was very proud of him.
At that point I had to run to the kennel and get Bear (he was there due to the wedding & reunion.) Most of the guests left at that point, which was good since Ky was getting tuckered. It had been a Very big day for him.
We had a nice evening with Adam & Liz playing games & catching up. We were so glad they visited...and we look forward to seeing them later this summer under less stressful circumstances (we are still on for Rosh Hoshanah, right?!) The next morning they were off--and Ky was bummed to see them go (so was I.) He really enjoyed his time with his Aunt & Uncle.
So our big b'day present for Ky (& Alaina--we made this a joint b'day present for them since they will both be using it) was the play area for them. Unfortunately it is still under works--however we have been getting it done as we have time in the summer. For his birthday, we did have the swing set assembled. We then planted grass around the playhouse (which he has never been in yet.) In July, we moved and anchored the swing set next to the playhouse and built Ky's Rock Box. (I had wanted to build him a giant sand box--but with the many numerous bunnies--we knew that it would be full of rabbit poop--so we did the next best thing.) I built him a giant box and we filled it with 1000 lbs of pea gravel. He loves it! (By the way--for the record I would like to say that I moved 850 lbs of this pea gravel and dumped it in his box within 10 minutes---I was in a hurry to get to work and wanted to get it done. I was VERY sore the next day.)
He loves his rock box so much that the next day at dinner he prayed to God and thanked God for the beautiful day to play in his Rock Box. It was TOO cute!
So the last step for the play area is to build a platform between the swing set and the play house. This platform will have a slide (which I picked up at a garage sale for $1--sweet deal!) and will have access to the playhouse. I hope to finish that in September as August has quickly been filled up with other summer fun.
So this is my late Birthday blog...stay tuned for father's day and then our vacation blogs! Coming soon!
