Happy Birthday Times Three!

2007

2008

2009

It amazes me as I type this, but we celebrated Leighton, Ryland, & Paxton's third birthdays this weekend. In contrast to the previous two birthdays, we celebrated in a more low key way this year. We were blessed to have both sets of grandparents travel to Lexington to celebrate with us. We enjoyed a pizza party together on Friday before heading over to our church for a surprise. When the boys arrived, we had new bikes decorated with balloons waiting for them. The weather wasn't cooperative so we reserved an all-purpose room at our church. For over an hour, the boys tried out their new wheels with plenty of crashing and laughing. The real surprise was Ryland as he hopped on his bike and took off. Within minutes, he was racing around and even skidding his bike around corners. Paxton announced that he wanted to trade bikes with Ryland because, "...my bike is not working and Ryland's is better."

On Saturday, we enjoyed a birthday breakfast before heading over to the inflatable "bounce" place (a.k.a. "the big slide" to the boys). The boys climbed, jumped, rolled, and bounced to their hearts' content. Phil and I enjoyed a rare treat of a 2:1 adult to child ratio. Wow! After a bit of down time in the afternoon, we set off for a birthday dinner at Johnny Carino's. After polishing off huge plates of food, Leighton, Ryland, and Paxton were presented with birthday sundaes. When I say sundaes, you may be picturing a nice small treat for the birthday boys as I envisioned. YOU WOULD BE AS WRONG AS I WAS! The server brought HUGE bowls of ice cream with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. And you know what? They ate it all and did not care to share. What a funny sight. With stuffed bellies, we returned home for gifts. Wired and lavished with love and new toys, the boys ended their birthdays with smiles on their faces.


The grandparents took off on Sunday morning and we were off to church and the new Sunday school class for 3-year-olds. Gulp! We used the remainder of the day to come down from the high of the weekend. One other event squeezed into the weekend was a huge applesauce making operation. We love homemade applesauce and the boys can really put it away. Phil's mom located 2 bushels of MI apples for me. On Friday night, Mom B, Mom H, & I worked away until 11:30 turning all of those beautiful apples into delicious applesauce. A huge thank you to them for all of their hard work.