Three!

Tyler had so much fun on his birthday this year, I want to celebrate it again! I took Tyler to the party store a few weeks ago and asked him to choose a theme. I was thinking he'd probably pick dinosaurs again, was hoping he'd pick dragons, but instead he surprised me by choosing "Hot Wheels," asking for a race car birthday.

I'm not artistic at all, and am very uncoordinated, so it is with great love that I make Tyler's birthday cakes. Emery was superbusy all weekend, so I was on my own this year. Scary. Tyson requested a cake made from scratch this year, making a valid argument about quality control. That was fine, it just took a little longer.   Next year I'll double the recipe though, we barely had enough cake to go around. I didn't notice a difference in flavor, and Tyson didn't even have a piece! But he is proud that he "improved everyone else's cake experience." (Okay Tyson...)

To make the race track, I put two 8 inch cakes next to each other, then trimmed a slice off each cake and put them together. I was going to use crushed Oreos to make the racetrack, but got lazy and made it out of edible paper instead. I piped the white dotted line, and then used green food coloring to make the frosting green for grass. I had planned to add green coconut for grass, but ran out of food coloring. Easter weekend seemed like a bad time to try to find more food coloring, so I figured we'd skip the coconut after all.

Still, Tyler was so excited about his race car cake that he kept dragging me into the kitchen to "check it." He was pumped!

Tyler was so excited that morning. He talked in his sleep at 5am, woke up at 6am, and at 6:53, I showed him his newborn pictures and sang happy birthday to him. He ran around in circles for a while, checking his cake every few minutes, played with his new race cars that were meant to decorate the cake, finally agreed to take a shower, and then we headed to the park.

New toy race cars AND juice - this kid was in heaven!

Nothing says party like a batch of bubbles and bubble wands! Freya, Ruby, Wesley and Noah instantly bonded, with plenty of bubble wands to go around.

I was absolutely thrilled to see Kalen - it'd been over two YEARS!

And I was so glad to finally meet this guy! Maxx will be two in July. He befriended Tyler by sharing animal crackers with him.

Ah, the Bushmans. Awesome people.

And The Grandmothers Three - Grandma Glass, Grandma Allaire, and Gigima (Great Grandma Allaire).

Grandpa Keith was there too, but somehow managed to evade the camera, as did the Eaves and the Welchs...

Tyler loves to "souffle" [pronounced 'soof'] candles. Especially at the Bushman's house - their chandelier is a bunch of faux candles, and he repeatedly asks Tyson to hold him up to "souffle" them while John turns the lightswitch off. So since we know he prefers to "souffle" candles more than once, I went ahead and got him the re-lighting candles. Tyler joyously sang happy birthday with everyone else.

He successfully blew out the candles on the first try...

But they soon re-ignited. I don't think he found this to be weird, I think he was just happy to get to blow them out again.

He blew them out three or four times before we decided to put them out for good.

Ruby eats lettuce straight up. As a parent desperate to get my child to eat any vegetables, a voluntary vegetable eater is my hero.

Noah is one of Tyler's very favorite people, perhaps his most favorite person under the age of 5. Looks like Maxx is becoming a fan, too.

Gigima helped Tyler open gifts.

The Batmobile - initially Tyler didn't know what to make of it, as he's not very familiar with Batman just yet. But he quickly caught on that this was even cooler than his Lightning McQueen car - I mean, it goes faster, and it shoots discs in the air! Once this became apparent, the Batmobile became a prized possession.

But trains. Oh, the trains. Tyler chants Train Song. He plays with trains in the morning. He plays with trains in the evening. He SLEEPS with his trains. So to receive more trains...This kid is in 7th heaven.

A tender mother-daughter moment...

The Glass-Johnson family called while we were at the park and asked to speak to Tyler. They serenaded him with "Happy Birthday" on speakerphone. I wish I had a picture capturing the biggest smile on his face!

After the guests left, we chilled at the park for another hour or so, enjoying the gorgeous whether and watching Tyler run around. When he became excessively uncoordinated, we left. He was asleep before the truck got out of the parking lot. We let him sleep until 6:45, then I began trying to rouse him. He finally got up at 8:00, his normal bedtime. He opened more gifts, and we put him back to bed at 10:45 at night, figuring we'd extend his birthday into the next day.

Thomas the Train for the Leappad? Good deal! Thanks Grandma G!

 I can't believe Tyler's 3 already! I remember the day of his birth like it was yesterday. Just over the past few weeks, Tyler's vocabulary and sentence structure has grown exponentially. The other day, he sat in my lap playing a video game while I was trying to watch TV. I set him down on the couch and moved to the other end of the couch so I could hear the television. Tyler asked, "Why you not sitting next to me?" This question touched my heart - this was the first why question that was completely spontaneous, asking about another human being's behavior (as opposed to "why not" when I tell him he can't have crackers for breakfast.)

Much of getting along with Tyler over the past year has been negotiation, or linking what he wants to what I want - "You want a vitamin? Okay! First you have to brush your teeth." "You want a hot dog? Great! First we have to eat some vegetables." We've also worked with him on identifying his emotions, and letting him know what he can do with those emotions - "I can see you're angry right now. It's not okay to throw things when you're angry, but it IS okay to stomp your feet..." It's heartbreaking to hear him exclaim "I'm sad!" Or once, when I said, "I'm mad at you right now for dumping milk on the floor", he cried so intensely and exclaimed, "No, I'm sad at YOU!" - like it's devastating to him to realize his actions can cause negative emotions in the people he loves.

Tyler is intensely affectionate, still giving ferocious hugs and lots of spontaneous kisses. He loves kissing our injuries. He often sings, and asks Tyson to read him his songbook. London Bridge, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Wheels on the Bus are favorite songs right now. He still loves reading Train Song and at least one Thomas book each night. He reads for at least a half-hour each night, painfully obvious when I had laryngitis last weekend! He calls his vitamins "candles" - maybe short for candy? Or maybe because they kind of look like candles? He takes being a "good listener" very seriously, and randomly exclaims, "Vader's a good listener!" He also at times says "Vader's not listening. He needs to go to timeout."

It just occurred to us to have Tyler go diaper-free over night - he often wakes to ask to use the bathroom, though he stays in bed until one of us arrives, instead of simply walking there on his own. So far, I've only had to change the sheets once in the middle of the night, so I think we're doing pretty good there...

He loves to make art projects - we got an Alex Little Hands craft box, he made a frog puppet, other puppets, and his very favorite creation is a tissue paper butterfly.

I got a little concerned the other day driving home from work/school - Tyler was talking about airplanes "falling out of the sky and crashing into the ocean!" I wondered why on earth anyone would have talked to him about plane crashes, and we asked each other, "Are they watching Cast Away at school?" It was a good twenty minutes before we realized he was talking about the movie, The Incredibles! What a relief.

Thank you, everyone who helped make Tyler's birthday such a happy one! And thank you Tyler, for being so awesome! We love you!