Ian's 3rd Birthday Morning

I have always been a big fan of birthdays (including my own, if you hadn't gathered that before). So it's been fun to make birthdays exciting for my kids now. Chris did a great job decorating for Ian's birthday. I am sure I was being silly working on something on the computer. I am grateful we have such a good Daddy who is so involved and cares about making things like this special and important. (This also made me realize that I somehow forgot to decorate on Chris' birthday a few weeks before! I felt so bad when this dawned on me. No excuses, but my only consolation was that maybe I was just super tired after flying in from Chicago the night before...I can be spacey and kind of a slacker at times, but I at least usually try to be cute and remember fun stuff like this. Luckily, I did already have a gift for him, so I wasn't completely good for nothing that day!)
The house looked really cute. Ian was really bummed when we told him it was time to take it down a few days later. Pretty sure he'd be okay if we celebrated his birthday every day!
Chris also had the table set up really cute with some of Ian's gifts.
Ian was excited to get Chick Hicks. He had been asking for a Tractor, but unfortunately his parents learned the hard way that items such as that are going to need more time and energy to find (What is it with only being able to buy certain Cars in the three-packs with the same Lightning McQueen you already have two times over?!).
The hats might be kind of cheesy but the boys look cute in them! It's great how even simple purchases from the dollar store can be used again and again each birthday to add a little extra fun to the day (I think these were from Ian's 1st birthday!)
When I was growing up, my mom always let us choose a favorite cereal (even a sugary one, if we wanted) the week of our birthday. Ian is a big cereal fan (hmmm...another which parent-does -that-come-from trivia question; anyone else noticing a trend here?!) so I figured he'd get a kick out of picking one. Plus he'd be talking about and wanting Trix ever since we left Las Vegas, so I figured it would be fun. Chris took him to Smith's with him and said Ian was almost swayed to get Rice Krispies because it had Kung Fu Panda on the front (ah, the joys of marketing) but helped him choose by cereal not box decor. I may be opening a can of worms with the sugary/"fun" cereals, but I figure certain traditions are worth starting; I still have good memories of my years of "birthday cereals" (I still remember the time I chose Cookie Crisps. What was I thinking! They are okay as a snack food but not that great in a bowl with milk. I guess we all learn the hard way at some point).

I'm also finding it humorous that Ian's birthday is probably going to be broken up into at least 3 different posts. I guess as long as you are fairly careful, it's probably pretty hard to have too much birthday (unless you're Sister Bear, of course).