Heidi's 3rd Birthday

3 years ago Heidi came to our family 2 days late just like her sister.  I remember it seemed to take her forever to smile, and for those first months she seemed so serious.  With our goofy and friendly Alex had been from such an early age, I figured we now had a serious child.  Oh I was so wrong.

This is Heidi's camera smile.  I do not like it. 
Friday morning I woke up with a fever and an infection, not how I had hoped to spend my silliest child's 3rd birthday.  I should have spent the day in bed, but Heidi had been asking for a month "Is my birthday tomorrow?!!!"  I couldn't let her down!  Luckily Tyler had taken the day off work and got to spend another weekend as super Dad! 

She ate her favorite cereal for breakfast and then opened her presents (all yellow, her favorite color.)  There were books and dresses, musical instruments and an ant farm.  I'd also found some of those stacking cups you get for babies, she loves those and I'd been looking for 3 years so I finally got them!

I'll let you imagine what the house sounded like that morning.  All the pictures are thanks to Tyler, I really was a fuddy duddy the entire weekend.  After presents and playing around for a bit, we piled in the car and went to The Gym, a gymnastics gym that lets kids come for free play once a week.  The kids loved it, especially since they had Dad to run with and toss them around.  After the gym was Carls Jr. for the play place and then home for some outside play and then a movie so Mom could nap and Dad could have a break!

Whenever I asked Heidi what she wanted for her birthday she would say " A yellow cake with works and candles and vanilla ice cream!"  We had hotdogs for dinner (her favorite) and then the cake!  This was not the kind of cake I had envisioned making, but Heidi is all about making her own choices and wanted JUST a yellow cake with those worms.  She decorated it herself and after blowing out the candles, just at the worms.  The cake is still sitting, uncut on the counter.  Everyone else enjoyed a cupcake while Alex and Heidi gorged on wormy goodness.

It was a small party because everyone else in the family was out of town except Grandma and Grandpa.  It was nice to have them there, pulling all the extra weight as i lay in the lazyboy with a fever of 103, trying to sound enthusiastic as I sang Happy Birthday.  My heart was breaking for Heidi until I realized that her day was spend doing all her favorite things- and had I felt well enough I probably would have ruined that by making her do what I thought she would like to do.

Saturday i woke up feeling much better and we found that the Birthday Goblins had arrived!  Tyler started this fantastic tradition with Alex's birthday and the girls go nuts over it.  The birthday gobblins leave envelopes with picture clues for the birthday child to find.  The kid must then figure out where we have to go to find the next clue!  We stopped by Grandma Jake's for a visit and Heidi loved it, she adores her Great Grandma.

After Grandma's, the clue took us to Krispy Kreme, Heidi's favorite place on earth.  We then got some silly putty from the toy store, a few bedtime books from the used bookstore and then stopped by Cafe Rio to grab lunch (because birthday's are special for the Mom's too.)  While I was inside getting our food, Quinn had a blow out in the carseat.  I came back with the food to discover Tyler holding a naked baby with a smile on his face.  The girls informed me of the details and I was just so impressed to find the problem resolved AND a smile on Tyler's face.

Next stop was the park, Quinn's first time, where Tyler got roped into pushing the girls on the swings for an eternity while I ate my wonderful salad and watched.

Quinn was wonderful as usual.

Heidi sang a song on the way to the car, and when i finally caught up I could hear the words, "Daddy is a sourpuss, Daddy is a sourpuss."  I laughed and told Tyler who asked, "Then what is mommy?"  Heidi responded "A slowpoke."  You can see from the picture that she has us pinned.

We still arn't sleeping a lot here. I took a picture of you sleeping Tyler and posted it on the internet.  Please don't ever do that to me!

Alex asked why I never do her hair cute.  I laughed and reminded her that she never lets me!  So we both have been making more of an effort.

As Quinn slept in the swing and I snuck to the computer to blog, this is what my big girls were doing, I love how they play animals together for hours on end.