Zachary is 3! (Part 2)

He's been practicing the past few days so he'd be ready for shooting up the 3 fingers when he was official.



Ty and Scott came down with colds Saturday night, so we stayed home from church and Chris was the high council speaker at a branch 1 1/2 hours away in the morning. So, Tyler made tickets and we watched a movie (not a normal Sabbath activity!), of course, Cars.

After a picnic lunch on the living room floor and naps, we had our own little party. We played some games like the ever-popular fishing game (with a visit from a crocodile -- aka Dad's hand reaching out and grabbing unsuspecting fisherman which brought on fits of giggles!), and red light/green light -- Zach loved the power of this game and delighted in telling us how to drive our "cars" around.




My favorite picture of the day -- McQueen hat, spearmint gum sticking out of his teeth, and a huge smile! Zach is truly a joy -- my little sunshine. He is a happy, imaginative, and loving little boy. We're so blessed to have him in our family.

Zachary is 3! (Part 1)

Zach sleepily wandered into our room at 6:05 a.m. and asked, "Can I have some cake now?" I was able to hold him off a bit until others woke up -- then the reveal! He loved his cake, but mostly the "Mack" semi truck that he's been hoping for to hold his Lightening McQueen car.






Here's a front view of the cake -- I tried to post a picture of all the Cars guys behind as part of a diorama kind of thing.














It was definitely a Cars themed birthday -- here he is holding his Lightening McQueen backpack that had some small packages of gum (his favorite!) hidden in the pockets. Tyler gave him one of his Bakugan that Zach's always admiring (we thought that was pretty cute), Scott gave his a McQueen hat, and Tessa gave his Red the fire engine. He received some cards and money, too, that we'll have enjoy helping him use to buy something fun! Funny story: when I went to wrap the gifts the night before, I didn't have any gift boxes to wrap the oddly shaped Cars things. I used some empty food boxes that worked great. As Zach opened the first one from Tessa, the fire truck was inside a mini-cheeseburger box. He held it for a second, looked at it really closely with this look like, "huh..., but I don't even like these", but he didn't complain. It was so sad and cute at the same time. We quickly told him to look inside! By the last gift, he would look and say, "This isn't really noodles!" and open it up. : )

He enjoyed blowing out a candle on his favorite chocolate chip pancakes and "meat sticks" (sausage links) for his birthday breakfast.

Tyler's 11th Birthday Party

Tyler's birthday party was the Friday after his birthday. He invited several friends to a "private screening" of the Bionicle movie on the large screen in the TDS Training Center. They made ice cream sundaes after and played a little Capture the Flag. He had some extremely generous gifts that left Chris and I looking at eachother thinking -- "yikes, we're total cheapskates!" He had a great night.

Tyler's 11th Birthday!

I can't believe Tyler is 11! We're very proud of the young man he is. Here he is on his birthday morning.





My attempt at a Bakugan cake -- it took him a minute, but he guessed it!








The 5th grade tradition is that the birthday student's face is plastered with birthday stickers by classmates (to be worn for the afternoon) and then given a bag of goodies like this horn.






For his birthday dinner, Tyler requested dinner out with Chris and I. He chose Olive Garden -- and the Endless Pasta Bowl (of which I was the only one to go for seconds!). It was really fun to have that time just with him. We gave him our presents there: a pocketknife to use in Boy Scouts (this picture made Chris a little nervous!) and a remote control helicopter.