Last year, right around this time, Memaw and Grandpa took the boys to the library to check out some books. About a month ago, they did the same. The boys came home with the following: “Smiley Shark”, “Big Fish Little Fish”, “Hooray for Fish” (are we seeing a pattern here?) and a Star Wars book. One night, as we were reading “Hooray for Fish” for the umpteenth time in his room, Aiden started “reading” along. I had him try the whole book from the beginning. I was impressed that he knew all the words (had memorized the words that is..not that he can actually read them). Last year, I video taped him “reading” the book “Skippy John Jones: Color Crazy”aaaaaaaaaaaa so I decided to tape this one too. The books were due back on Tuesday so I made this video quickly before we had to take them back.

I wanted to include a link to the Skippy John Jones post, but back then I didn’t know how to do embedded videos so there is only a link to youtube there anyway. Instead, I’m going to post both videos now. First: Aiden in 2008 “reading” Skippy (2 years and 3 months old) and then this year reading Hooray for Fish (which is quite hard to hear I might add…he was speaking quickly and slurring the words a bit). Logan helps finish the book and notice how Brady comes in and yells at me for pointing the camera to him. He’s got the paparazzi move down pat! Oh and I now remember why I taped the Skippy book…I thought it was so cute that 1. Aiden thought his name was “Skippy John Jones Color Crazy” and 2. He repeats to Skippy what he had, at that point, been told MANY MANY times “you only color on paper!”

After over a week of accident-free potty use, Aiden relapsed a bit. Overall though...SO much better than having 2 in diapers! Last Sunday, at the water park, he asked at least 3 times to use the bathroom (awesome! way to go!). When we got home and put everyone in dry cloths, however, he peed on the floor! Baffling! I had purchased some oxyclean pet urine spray for cleaning up such messes, but the trigger broke so I had to find a new bottle. After Sunday's incident, Brian asked where he could find the spray. I giggled and told him to look under the sink in the kitchen. He looked at me like I had lost my mind then walked over, opened the cabinet, looked in....and started cracking up.

Can you read that? It says "Aiden peed on something spray". This is how I amuse myself in these situations I guess :) Oh the joys of motherhood! This does, however, make me think of a comment my friend recently put on facebook. It almost made me cry:

Please, let them be little, 'Cause they're only that way for a while. Give them hope, give them praise, Give them love every day. Let 'em cry, let 'em giggle, Let 'em sleep in the middle, Oh, but let them be little.

Oops...almost cried again re-reading it! For sure I'll take the potty accidents!!!!!

So I pick up where my last post left off: after breakfast, post surprise fish and a few gifts on the day of Aiden's 3rd birthday party. We're all still in jammies, but we went outside to get some stuff set up.

Here, the boys help me fill up 18 squirt bottles with water. After they were all full, I opened, organized and labeled our liquid water color for the party and then added color to the bottles for round 1 of get messy.
Brian called me Thursday night asking if we had any super glue. He wanted to make this amazing invention - the kid wash! He drilled holes in PVC pipe, glued on a hose attachment, took down the swings on the fort and hung it up where the swings attach. It's like a vertical sprinkler....genius!! (my husband rocks!)
Here's the party in full swing!

Every year, we take Aiden's picture with his party balloons. I was dying laughing because he was MUCH more of a ham this year. Here is "the good picture"

And here is Aiden's "evil face" (yes....he does this ALL the time). Pete told me after the party that he had some bad news for me. He started talking about Aiden's evil face. I said "right....it's kind of scary!?" Then he broke it to me.....he saw the evil face on BRADY! OH man...I'm in SO much trouble!!!

And finally, a goofy face. Aiden is sporting the necklace that we made last week. The kids at the party made those and the sand-art people (see projects page). The necklaces were a bit labor intensive and we got them out late because both ovens were too hot for shrinky dinks by the time they were ready to go in (we needed both to cook the kid food). BUT....I think they were a big hit overall so...totally worth it.
Before we go on, here are the past Birthday Balloon pics: 2nd birthday (2008)

First birthday party (2007):

Kid wash time!!!!

The smart kids climbed up and shot down from the top of the fort!

I don't think Brady got messy enough!!

Aiden's most favorite thing: the balloon candles for his.....

...AWESOME rainbow cake! This is the cake he really really wanted and I actually think it's one of the coolest cakes I've ever seen! We saw a rainbow cake like this in the fridge at the grocery store one day...he fell in love. We asked for darker colors, blue instead of white boarders and sprinkles. The best part, and something that didn't occur to me until we started cutting, was that every kid could request the color they wanted....and we were able to accomodate everyone! Totally cool!! Not to be too TMI, but we had some interestingly colored diapers the next day (ever seen bright blue poo??? hysterical!!!)