The big 3

Big William turned 3 last week, it was quite the event. The celebration was much anticipated and lasted an entire week.

It started on Sunday with a scrumptious birthday cake brother/Granpa Gibson brought over after church. We love brother Gibson, the boys talk about him almost daily and William throws himself in his arms every time he sees him. William was very excited to blow his candles 2 days in advance with our friend.

The following day, William surprised me with a new "first": the monkey bars. He must have had a growth spurt over night because it seems like yesterday he was still desperately trying to reach the bars with arms too short. Of course as soon as he was able to reach, he figured out how to throw himself from one bar to the next. Have you tried doing that recently? It hurts!...

After the monkey bar exploit we celebrated with left over yummy cake and that's the story of when we finished William's birthday cake before it was even his birthday...

I took the boys to the movie theater for Family Home Evening that night. It was their first time and it went rather well, or as well as you'd expect it to go (popcorn explosion, loud comments about the people in front of us, multiple attempts, sometimes success at running around during the movie...) Good thing the room was pretty much empty. We were planing on watching Monsters University, but the boys picked The Croods instead. It was very funny and endearing and sweet.

On Tuesday was William's actual birthday. The boys went to Chuck E. Cheese with their Dad. They came home ecstatic.

(Pictures courtesy of R.)

The next couple of days I worked really hard to materialize all the ideas I had for the birthday party that Saturday. After discussion we picked the phone game "Cut the Rope" as an inspiration. If you've played the game, and know William, you probably understand why. 

Om Nom the candy eating monster

It was a little harder to come up with ideas than the themes we've had previously, but with a little inspiration from the internet I ended up with a fun plan. We played 2 games, the first one was "eat the donut on a string" and the second one "feed Om Nom" involved making a frisbee with paper plates and decorating it as a piece of candy, and then throwing it in the mouth of the candy monster. I also made a cake, a piñata and some pizzas, and my friends Emily and Heidi brought veggies and drinks.

The donut game was a hit, as you can tell by the sugary faces:

And the paper frisbees turned out cute:

Then we attacked the piñata.

And after a couple of good hits the attach broke, but it just made it easier for the kids to whack the  defeated pinata on the ground.

 

the favors

We then sang happy birthday and cut the cake:

And William opened his presents.

Then came the sweetest distribution of hugs you've ever seen

(Post a comment if you find the default on these pictures)

And that was all I had planned, but if you ask the boys what they liked best I'm pretty sure they'll say it was playing fight and climbing on our friends' backs and all the boy energy explosion that followed.

The rest of us enjoyed the pizza and veggies, and one of those nice long evenings enjoying each others company while the kids ran around happy that we'd forgotten about bed time and good-byes...

A few days later I gave William his annual "interview". This is what came out of it:

Here's to another year of sweet mischief, tender hugs, candy sneakage, athletic exploits and much more...