Rylan's 3rd Birthday!

Birthday boy.

Pancakes are one of Rylan's favorite breakfasts, so we had pumpkin shaped pancakes with sprinkles on the morning we celebrated with my parents.


Caroline loved Rylan's balloons.


Dad picked out a Batman and Blue Beetle set which was a great hit.


Batman is in the house! This costume was one of his birthday presents and hopefully will last until Halloween, too.


Rylan's cake. We had kind of a Thomas/train theme for his birthday this year. He was excited about looking at the cake, but again this year, wouldn't eat more than a bite. More for the grown-ups to enjoy!


The glow of birthday candles. Rylan loved blowing them out!

Ticket invitations to Rylan's train party with his four closest friends.


This picture didn't turn out great, but these are Rylan's party cupcakes. I bought stickers on Ebay to use to make toppers, but they were smaller than they looked on the picture. With some glue, construction paper and toothpicks, they worked anyway.
I promised Rylan he could put sprinkles on the cupcakes when we made them later in the day, and he nearly drove me crazy asking a million times when it would be time to sprinkle the cupcakes. When decorating time finally arrived, he was beyond thrilled, and more than generous with the sprinkles.

I was so thankful for a beautiful day so the kids could play outside. I can't even imagine how my house would have looked after five kids and chocolate iced cupcakes!

Rylan and his best guy friend, Jimmy. They are great wrestling buddies. Jimmy is actually about 6 months younger, but just as tall as Rylan and they play really well together. We will be really sad when Jimmy moves to North Dakota in the spring.

Jimmy gives his buddy Rylan a tractor ride.

Charlton gets mobbed by toddlers throwing bean bags. I thought about having a more formal game with the bean bags, but the kids had plenty of fun inventing their own "game."


We had a picnic lunch outside with mini sandwiches, fruit, pretzels and goldfish.

Cupcake time!

Lucille and Jeromy help Rylan blow out his cupcake candles.

Getting ready to chow down on cupcakes.


Jeromy and Lucille concentrate on eating their cupcakes.


Dain gets a little help from his mom, Becky.

This mess calls for the garden hose!


I can't decide which looks sweeter, that precious boy or his yummy cupcake! Rylan wasn't a fan of regular cake, but he loved cupcakes.

Fun opening presents. Our friends were so kind and generous. I debated actually opening the presents at the party because I didn't want to cause a lot of jealousy and fights over not sharing toys. The kids were so excited that I just couldn't resist. It was a little chaotic and we had a few small squabbles, but overall it went well and there were enough new interesting toys for everyone to have something to play with.