Happy 3rd Birthday John!!!!

Today was a great 3rd birthday for John. He woke up to a special visitor who came in all the way from California. Mammaw was here and she came bearing gifts....

a big new Chevron car for John's collection....but it wasn't a car....it was a big red fire truck! We've been to 2 fire truck themed birthday parties in the last two weeks and his latest favorite book is about Curious George visiting the fire house so John is very "fired up"  about fire trucks lately. We carried this fire truck around with us all day. We took it to swim lessons, John kept it in his bed at nap time, we took it to the mall. It stayed in the car of course but John wanted to bring it along wherever we went.

John sported this t-shirt I made for him, a knock off of a shirt my friend's son has and I think it is so cute. The store where she bought it doesn't carry it now so I made my own version (the real one is cuter) 

We had a great second day of swim lessons. John refused to blow bubbles for the teacher but I have hope for him.

Then Mimi came by in the afternoon bearing more gifts. A mini hand-puppet theater set (since John loves the puppet scene and song in The Sound of Music) and a new puzzle for the resident puzzle wizard.

We then went to Memorial City to burn off energy at the playcastle and my mom and I marveled at how 1 year ago John wouldn't do anything at the playcastle by himself but instead prefered to sit next to me, eat a snack, and watch the other kids play. Today he was running furiously around the playcastle we could hardly keep track of his whereabouts! He enjoyed watching the train ride through the mall and waving at the conductor. We celebrated with Chic-fil-A dinner and a birthday cookie at the mall. I was struck today by the fact that I don't think John has ever gotten a cookie from the mall? Today was a good "first" for that! So he got to choose his very own special birthday cookie. He chose an M&M cookie.

He got lots of phonecalls and visits from family members and he thouroughly enjoyed the fact it was his birthday. This evening he asked me about his birthday cake and I assured him we would enjoy a cake on Saturday when all his friends are here to help him celebrate.

Happy 3rd Birthday, John!!