Birthday Party Day!

 Talk about perfect timing.  We have a weekly playgroup that Tate and four other boys from the neighborhood get together for an hour to one and a half hours or so each Thursday.  Well, Tate's birthday happened to be on a Thursday and it was our week in the rotation to host playgroup.  It just made sense to do his birthday party for playgroup.  It made the birthday party really nice to have it go along with our routine for playgroups.   

 Tate's being funny about getting his picture taken these days-he always turns away!  It makes it more of a challenge to get a good one of him, but I wanted just one of me and my birthday boy.  I won't get started on how quickly these past three years have gone by . . .

but they really have.  My sweet little baby is a really a big boy now!  Okay moving on:  Tate was showing some uncommon brotherly love before the party and shared his "big blue" blankey with Blake.  I couldn't help but dressing them up in their dump truck (Tate's) and truck (Blake's) shirts for the party.

 We started playgroup like we always do with some free-play.  Tate picked out his diggers, cars, trucks and other construction stuff that he was willing to share with his friends.  They had fun playing while we waited for everyone to get there.  Then, Tate got out the bean-bag toss and building boxes.  I think the boys liked the blow-up bats to knock over the buildings the best.  We only did that for a little bit before somebody ended up getting knocked out from one of those building being demolished!

Next, we all headed outside to the garage.  We lucked out with some nice weather and opened up the garage door and let the sun in!  The obstacle course was fun . . . they walked through the ladder rungs, jumped over a box, ran around some paint cans, walked across a board and then crawled (or ducked) under a couple sawhorses.

 

Gage and Spencer

Jacob and his mom running around the paint cans.

 That kept them entertained for a normal three-year old's attention span and then they started doing things how they wanted!  Tate and Andrew decided to move the paint cans inside and stack them on the board.  I should say, Tate stacked them up and Andrew kicked them over!  The stacking and knocking them over happened a couple times against Tate's liking.

This is Tate taking a swing at Andrew for trying to knock the paint cans over again.  John was worried someone was going to get hurt with this activity.  But, the paint cans were pretty much empty and Tate missed!

 That was a good signal that it was time to head inside for a little lunch.

 Looked as though the boys worked up a good appetite.

Gage and Tate chowing down!

 

Jacob and Cameron

 John (perk of working from home), came down when we lit the candles.  I didn't put those trick candles on the cake, but you would have thought so. 

 It took Tate some good huffs and puffs to blow those candles out!

 With the candles blown-out, I cut the cake and passed out the Dixie cups (love those!). 

I'd say it was a really fun birthday.  Tate opened his presents and loved each one so much he just wanted to stop and play with each thing.  It took a little while to get him focused enough to open them and then say goodbye to his friends.  Once his friends left he had a great time trying out all of the new toys! 

I feel so lucky to have such a great three-year old and Tate is sure lucky to

have such great friends.