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Wesley turned three.  You know that by now.  And not just because I’ve written about it on this website, but also because he’s been talking about turning three since Jillian’s birthday in August.  For months now he’s been asking if it was his birthday and then given the response is always “no” asking when is his birthday.  And finally it came.  And it was over.  But not really.  He got almost a week worth of birthdays.  He deserves it.

We started on the morning of his actual birthday by opening a few presents.  He likes to open presents.  And then continued celebrating by going out to lunch, all four of us, even though it was a work day.

Kind of excited.

That evening we opened a few presents.  The next day of course was Thanksgiving.  And that means a party and to Wesley every party is especially for him.  Especially when the party comes with juice boxes and dessert.

On Friday he got to hang out with me all day since I had the day off.  Not to toot my own horn or anything, but to Wesley that is fun, maybe not as fun as a party, but still fun.

On Saturday we prepared for his real party.  We decided that instead of doing a big elaborate cake which would be both time consuming and hard to get to the park we would let Wesley decorate cupcakes for his party.  He had a blast for at least the first 15 or so.  The last few took a little coaxing to get him to finish.

Decorating cupcakes.

Too many blue sprinkles.

I'm three.

The original plan was to meet up at the park and then walk over to the fire station for a tour and afterwords come back to the park and have the party.  Remember that it was 80F on Thursday.  Saturday of course turns out chilly and then as we are at the park setting up it starts pouring.  So change of plans, no preparty.  Instead we met at the fire station.

I had my concerns.  Our group was pretty young, the oldest are in Kindergarten, and I’ve been on tours with other groups of kids that were a little academic.  Luckily, the firemen were great.  They pretty much let the kids run amuck.  On the trucks, in the trucks around the garage.  It was great.  The kids had a good time and even came away with some hats and stickers.

Ready for action.

New recruits.

We thought we might have to have the party in the back of our Subaru, but luckily it had dried out by the time we were done with our tour.  So we set back up at the park and had a nice little party.  Wesley opened more presents, blew out candles (even though it was too windy to get them lit) and ate cupcakes.  All in all it was rather nice and much less stress than our usual birthday celebrations.

He didn't notice they weren't lit.

More goodies.

After the party we played with his new toys.  And for no real reason took turns dressing up in his new chef’s outfit.

Wesley is goofy.

Dad too.

And Jillian...

And Mommy too!

For the first time in a long time we had a relatively relaxing and low-key Thanksgiving.  We didn’t cook a turkey or a ham.  All we made was dessert (apple crisp and a banana cream pie) and then showed up at Kerry and Bill’s in Hutto.  We got together with a bunch of mutual friends and had a nice afternoon, talking, eating, watching football and even playing a little Nintendo Wii.

The ladies did most (probably all) of the cooking.  Dinner was delicious.

Kerry makes greenbeans

Amber Makes Gravy

Building up an appetite

Headed for the NFL

All the food was really good.  From the turkey to the chestnut dressing.  Even the parsnips were yummy.

Collin likes dinner!

Wesley pretends to eat.

The only downside to not hosting dinner is not having any leftovers.  Okay, we’ve got lots of pie and crisp, but it is hard to make a sandwich with leftover apple crisp.

Wesley’s penguin passion started with Baby Penguin several months ago.  Then at the beginning of the month Grams got him two penguins for his birthday.  A big one he named Duck Duck and a baby one he named Buck Buck.  When we got them home and started talking about them he decided that they were a family.

• Duck Duck is the mommy penguin
• Buck Buck is the baby girl penguin
• Baby Penguin is the brother penguin

I remembered that Aunt Ashley gave him a penguin at her wedding.  I pulled it out and he became Daddy Penguin the daddy penguin.

And now the penguin family has adopted a small cute brown baby bat named Baby Bat.

Today Wesley wanted to take a picture of his penguin family.  He lined them up on the couch all by himself.  It was super cute how he snuggled baby bat right in the center.  After I took a picture, I wanted to get some video of him talking about his penguins.

Making these videos he came up with 2 new names:

• Uck Uck is the baby bat
• Uck Duck is the daddy penguin

Wesley sure does like to keep his family names similar.  I am not going to let him name any of our pets and I hope his naming skills improve for his children’s sake!

Here is Wesley and I talking about the family’s names and titles:

Then I asked him if he wanted to say anything to his family and this is what he said:

Just like all families, this penguin family is growing and changing.  Until the next addition, Wesley will continue to;  move them from room to room, take care of them when they are sick and sad, tuck them in when they are sleepy in a newly created nest, give them kisses and hugs, and bring one or two along when we go out of the house.

Wesley your loving and caring soul is so wonderful to be around!

Last Saturday we went to Annalise’s first birthday party.  All of her family came down from Waco for the party.  It was great to be around all of them.  But it did make me miss our family…

Mom made us wear these matching outfits...cute but silly.

Saying hello to the birthday girl.

There were a lot of toys outside to play with and the always fun bouncy house!

Mary Ann and Nicholas

Keeping busy while the big kids bounced.

They were working together to stack the pumpkins.

Then we had cake and opened gifts.  All of the kids were super cute and had a blast playing together.

They were a good team.

This is his first time with the party horn.

She thought it was so fun to use!

The birthday girl.

And then we needed a new outfit…

Thank you Grams for the shirt... and it does not!! :)

Playing with Annalise's gift from us. Jillian is playing with Lillian who is 1 month younger than her.

We all had a wonderful time.  Annalise’s official 1st birthday is on the 29th…so Happy Early Birthday!!