Birthweek Festivities

It’s funny – growing up, my father always used to say that our birthdays seemed to last for a week and I always kind of knew it was true, but didn’t care because, who would really mind having a full week devoted to you vs. just a day….until you are the parent of that person having the birthday week. I’m exhausted and she is only 3 years old – we have a good 15 years (if not more) left of this birthweek thing!

The weekend started off with my parents’ arrival on Thursday night. That was a great way to start the weekend – it was just the three of us, sitting outside on an unseasonably warm night in Providence enjoying Pizza and a lovely box of white wine (because we’re fancy like that).

Friday, they watched both kids while Josh and I were at work. From the sounds of it, everyone had a great day. Although, Alex cooperated so much with his morning nap that he slept right through lunch and as a result, didn’t take his afternoon nap on time (aka, at the same time as Avery). That said – one of them was awake ALL day – sorry Mom and Dad!

Saturday was the big gymnastics party! Picture 13 3-year-olds, a bunch of soft spongy stuff to crawl on, tunnels to climb through, balance beams to walk on and a huge tumble track to jump on. It was a blast. The kids had a great time and personally, I think that I deserve a big thank you note from all, as I’m sure they all slept quite nicely that night (with the exception of our own little bday girl, but that is a whole different topic for a whole different post).

Sunday was the family party at our house.

I was actually relatively organized this time and made the majority of the meal last weekend and froze it. But, we still managed to stay pretty busy for most of the day preparing. Primarily because of this lovely girl…

Yep – somehow I’ve gotten myself into this tradition where I make a cake every year. If you recall, last year was Barney. This year? Dora. Dora with about 50000 different colors (which, by the way – someone needs to tell that girl and a pink shirt doesn’t really go with red shorts and yellow socks, but whatever – who am I to judge?). The funny thing is that Avery could care less at this age. But, now the adults actually look forward (or so they say) to seeing what I’ve created that year, so I’m doing it. Don’t get me wrong – it’s fun, but just very time consuming. And, unless we all want stale cake, it isn’t really something you can do too far ahead of time.

Monday was her actual birthday (no, I wasn’t kidding that the bday celebrations lasted a while), so I took the day off and we all went to the zoo. We had a great time.

Although, it became quite obvious that my child’s attention span is that of a gnat as, after about 30 seconds of looking at an animal, we heard, “I want to go look at something else.”

But, I don’t think we can expect much more of a 3 year old. I will say this – we got through the entire zoo and at least we never heard, “ I want to go home.”

Overall, it was a great weekend. Avery still hasn’t opened any of our presents, as she was a bit overwhelmed with the quantity received. Here she is with one of her favorite gifts - flip flops!!!

She has been walking around the house in these ever since she got them. Somehow I'm not sure the cash register and the tball set that we got her will quite match up to these shoes, but we'll see...