3 Years Old!

Last week my baby boy turned 3. We had a small gathering of family to eat cake and open presents. I let Embry pick out the cake, since Matthew showed little interest and she picked out this...

A not so seasonally appropriate swimming pool cake from a Jello kids cookbook that I bought a couple of years ago. Complete with swimming/floating/sunbathing bears (adult and child bears due to my mistake of buying "mini" teddy grahams instead of the regular size).

It was fairly easy to make, just a 13x9 yellow cake with most of the middle carved out and blue jello poured in. Frost with cool whip (I'm not sure why, other than to sell more products of the same brand) and accessorize with graham crackers, gummi life savers, mini oreos, and cocktail umbrellas.

I was kind of weirded out by the whole jello/cake combination, and the fact that the cake didn't have much cake in it. But, everyone seemed to like it ok.

Matthew was not much interested in opening his presents, so Embry did most of the opening. He loved the toys that he received (once they were unwrapped), but somehow we couldn't convince him that it was OK to rip apart paper and boxes. He kept looking at me to check if it was all right. Silly kid.

His favorite present, by far, was this back-and-forth car ramp thingy...

He's been playing with it pretty much non-stop since he opened it. Thanks Uncle Nicol!!

Overall it was a great afternoon. Matthew even learned to say that he's three when we asked him how old he is. This amazes me because he wasn't yet saying anything on his last birthday. How far he has come in one year - 1000 words and about 6 inches! This will definitely be the last birthday he'll have being shorter than his big sister. :)

Happy birthday Matthew!