Dane's third birthday was yesterday and we had a perfect, low-key, happy third birthday for him. I kind of feel turned off from trying to do too much for kids' birthdays because of all the over-the-top birthday parties that you see on social media. I refuse to spend hours and hours making a fancy Thomas the train cake (although he would probably have loved it) and decorating and planning a crowded birthday party. Dane was absolutely thrilled with his super not-fancy cake I made and with our little mini-party with his "cousins," and I think it worked out great. I like doing a family outing for us instead of a party--although eventually I know we'll do birthday parties, just not until he knows what he's missing out on.
So for our outing, I found a real, life-sized train that we could ride on for his birthday celebration, a week before his birthday. I thought it would be a huge hit with this Thomas-obsessed boy. We got to the train station half an hour early, right as the train was pulling up, and Dane was blown away.
We couldn't wait to get on...
This is how excited we were at the beginning of the train ride:
And this is how the ride ended:
So it was a total success. Good thing we've got a sense of humor--it could have been really frustrating to plan a really fun outing that ended with both kids crying and whining most of the time, and with a potty training accident in the car on the way home. HA.
Luckily, we had very low-key plans for Dane's actual birthday. I bought some birthday decorations at the dollar store and set them up around the dining room.
We had birthday cereal (Dane picked it out--Lucky Charms!) for breakfast.
The big present of the day was Dane's new SANDBOX, complete with an awesome dump truck. Dane said, "This is the biggest dump truck ever!" (I actually bought the dump truck for him for Christmas and never gave it to him because he got SO many other presents for Christmas, and it's worked out great!) He played in the sandbox most of the day while we hung out at home.
The weather was nice and COOL for at least an hour in the morning so we went on a walk before Graham's morning nap, and Dane rode his trike up and down the street.
For lunch, we went to Tommy's work and had lunch with him. Dane was soooo excited and couldn't contain himself. He got a corn dog, which cost $1. Win win.
We spent the afternoon after naps just hanging out with the sandbox outside. These two sat outside for a while while I was inside doing dishes and I could hear Graham squealing with happiness while he watched Dane playing in the sand. That kid will be the happiest baby once he can move.
Then we had the Warners, our second/third cousins, over for dinner! Dane talked all day about having Cameron and Mallory and Mason come over and play in his sandbox with him.
And we had a barbecue for dinner. More hot dogs, haha.
His cake was basically the world's most ghetto kid's birthday cake ever. I seriously laughed so hard at myself after I finished it. But when I showed it to Dane he was so happy--he said, "Whaaaaat?!! WOW!!!"
So happy having people sing happy birthday to him.
After dinner, during cake, he opened up a few more presents he hadn't wanted to open in the morning. (He gets easily overwhelmed by presents, I've found. Two or three is about the max he wants to open at a time.)
By the end of the day Dane was conked out. But I felt pretty satisfied that he had a good birthday, although when I asked him at the end of the day how his birthday was he said, "Not good." Haha! He had about 12 requests to Skype from various members of our families, he got several awesome presents, and he got to spend most of the day playing with his awesome sandbox and hanging out with us. What could be better?
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