Beautiful Boys and a Birthday

AJ turned three this past weekend. Here he is coming down the wobbly slide with his Uncle Paul and his Auntie Kim. He had a blast. Big thanks to his little 3 and almost 3 year old buddies: Makenna (almost 3), Grace (almost 3), Josiah (almost 3), and Jack (3) for coming!!! What a great way to celebrate being 3. AJ thanks everyone for all the great gifts. I'm going from memory right now. Sorry if I've forgotten any.
Makenna - Matchbox race town tracks and a rugby shirt/hoodie
*AJ loves the hoodie and he and Dexter have played with the tracks every day.
Jack - Moonsand
*I put the moonsand down in AJ's play area in the playroom. He is very focused when he plays with this. I venture to say he finds it a little mesmerizing. He's probably in shock that he's allowed to play with sand IN the house.
Josiah - A cool skate t-shirt and this big hot wheels cars that goes really fast when you rev it up by pulling the handles at either end
*I'm so thankful for this gift because AJ and Dexter have been fighting over the green big hot wheels car that crashes (from Cousin Mike) and this one just made everything so much more peacful.
Grace - A BIG sand castle bucket and new "Cars" puzzles AND her presence all the way from Puyallup
* AJ did the puzzles both the next day. And he's done the one with Mac every day since.
Auntie Brenda and Uncle Al - A BIG Tonka truck with a boat and trailer.
*It's hard to say who loves this more, AJ or Dexter. They've both been seen dragging this around the house and 'brrrrrrring' everywhere.


Here's Makenna heading up the play structure with her 'big kid' friends. She's probably on her way to the "Lavaslide". What a brave little girl.

AJ and Jack enjoyed building and knocking down towers with Uncle Paul. Unfortunately, later, a little boy was trying to build a tower and AJ and Jack wouldn't let him get much accomplished. No sooner had he stacked one on another and 'CRASH'.... destroyed.

Dexter's here watching Grace go down 'his slide'. Dexter was doing 'slide set up' all by himself at the birthday party. He'd climb to the top of the slide, get on his belly, spin to be feet first, and head on down. (This is how Richard and I teach the boys to safely go down the slide when they're babies.
Here's Dexter up on a stack of chairs looking down at everyone. He felt pretty proud up there.

Here are Grace, Makenna, Jack, and AJ doing gift-time.

I realized after the party that I didn't get any pictures of Josiah. He arrived when we were downstairs playing and I guess I didn't bring my camera back out!! Bummer.

After the party, our out of town guests, Melissa, Loren, and Grace came for a dinner of Butter Chicken and some playtime. What a great, full day.
Here are some pics of the birthday that Melissa and Loren took!

1. The kids colouring some Wall-E pictures while they wait for cake time.

2. Dexter having just finished his lunch and now would like some cake.

3. The candles being blown out.

4. AJ and Grace having cake.
5. AJ and Grace experiencing 'Cheetos'.
6. Our dear out of town guests that drove around 3 hours to help us celebrate AJ's birthday.
7. Back at our house, AJ and Grace playing in AJ's room.
8. Back at our house, Grace having too much fun in Dexter's room.
9. Back at our house, all three of them playing in AJ's room.
10. Our house at dinner. I hauled up the extra high chair to save space at the dinner table. Here's AJ and Grace. Oh look, AJ's doing his favourite facial expression titled
"The EMO glare"

I should mention AJ's birthday morning!!
In the morning he got to open his gift from Mommy and Daddy which was a Mr. Potato Head family bucket and two Thomas books. He also got to open his gift from Dexter which was two new Pixar Cars: The King and Filmore.

AJ has just loved reading his birthday cards every day since receiving them.






Here is AJ writing in his journal from Sami and Avery from my 'birthclub'. He was doing some letters and asking how to spell some people's names.





Here's AJ just relaxing on the couch with his Monkeys all swaddled. He told me he was 'sick'. He knows he's only supposed to have his lovies out of bed if he's sick. He wasn't sick. Little Bum.

Here's some cute stuff about AJ this past week.
1. We're eating burgers the other night.
He says, "Mmmmmmm. I really like my burger."
I say, "I like mine too."
He says, "I like mine three."
2. AJ was on naughty spot for sassing me or something and he keeps complaining.
I say, "Stop talking. There's no talking in the naughty spot or you're going to be there longer."
He says, "I'm not talking, I'm just whining."
Cheeky bum.

Here's Dexter. He really likes sitting on stools, especially ones that he can sit on himself. Since early start potty training's been a no-go with him, I thought "What better item for a stool!" Now he's sitting on the potty himself. I'm that much closer to potty training. YAY. He loves this. It's just the perfect height for him.

Dexter's been really trying to help me unload the dishwasher. He takes out almost every item from the bottom rack to hand to me and gets a 'thank you' for every one. It's quite cute. He really enjoys it.

Dexter's added two new signs to his repetoire....
kiss
milk (but he actually means, drink/water)
Also he says 'banana' almost perfectly now.

So, I'm going to officially 'update' my psuedo baby book for him:

Dexter's Word List updated
Mama
Dada
Daddy
AJ (which sounds more like Ay-Jay now)
cat
up
baba (what we call a bottle)
banana - properly
hi
Rya - new

Dexter's Signs List updated
more
change (which he seems to occasionally be using to actually tell me he's pooped)
cracker
finished
hi
bye
sleep
eat
surprise
stop
daddy
kiss - new
milk - (he means drink/water)

Animal Sounds
-Still nothing new. I haven't been working on this at all.
He'll copy the sound of a sheep, but he's actually doing the pig sounds when I say, "What does the pig say."