Birthday Extravaganza

It's hard to believe, but Hayden turned 3 on Saturday. He was spoiled with trucks, Transformers, one giant dino and many other great gifts. But most importantly, he was surrounded by friends & family...for which we're really grateful!

The party was a lesson learned for me. First of all, don't let the three-year-old be in charge of opening the cards before tearing open the paper. This seems obvious, but we were about three presents in before I realized that we never announced who the first several were from. We had to do a little backtracking and delayed thanking.

Secondly, don't single-handedly finish off all appetizers once guests leave...especially when you're trying to lose baby weight and you only lost .4 lbs the week before.

Thirdly, I've learned that birthdays and Christmas can bring out the little kid in all of us...especially my husband. I've never seen him so excited about buying gifts, getting great deals and finding those perfect little things that will make Hayden's eyes light up when he sees them for the first time. (did I mention he was out the door at 5am on Black Friday?) And in the case of Hayd's birthday, it caused him to rush to Toys R Us at 6am Saturday morning to get the last dino that had just been marked down ridiculously! I envisioned him slapping moms and bull dozing other triceratops-crazy dads to get his hands on the last box, much as those insane moms did in my childhood with Cabbage Patch Kids & Pound Puppies. In the end, it was all worth it. Hayden told the dino this morning that he was so glad he came to our house and he was the best dinosaur ever in the world. Troy's deal-watching & quick reflexes had paid off!

Our goal in the next few weeks is to stress the difference between birthdays and Christmas. They are so close together that they roll into one big party for him. At some point, he'll learn Christmas is about giving (and not just getting) and most importantly about Jesus' birthday. It might be a hard for him to share his birthday month with the Big Guy, but he doesn't have a choice :) At least he's in good company.

Carson slept through most of the party. For being such a big part of our lives, he's awake for a very small part of it. I believe the grandparents had a good time passing him back and forth.

I didn't get a lot of great pictures once everyone got here, but here are some mainly from before & after the festivities!