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!!!)

It's that time again....time for another birthday party! Aiden turns 3 in 2 weeks, but his party is next Friday, the 3rd. It's "get messy" just like last year, but with a Hawaiian Tiki theme. Logan and Aiden have been helping me get everything ready for the crafts we have planned. I'm posting our "tests" on the projects page. I took a couple funny pics of the big boys helping me out though plus one picture that makes me quite worried for the future....

Before I get to those, I needed to post this one. I didn't realize that I never added a picture of the front of Aiden's UP house to my last post. Idn't it the cutest?? Yes...I do mean idn't :) I still can not fathom the amount of work this must have taken!! P.S. Nana, all the balloons are still attached (no longer floating, but still inflated) and all three boys are still happily dragging it around!
Here is the picture that got me worried (I took several like this with my iphone one day while we were playing outside). This is Susan's big battery-powered jeep toy. As you can see, it's supposed to fit 2, but no one wanted to be left out. Logan was driving and was being quite reckless....which I'm pretty sure was by design. He ran into: AJ's scooter, his bike, Mackenzie's bike, the tree in our front yard and almost his brother. Aiden and AJ, to add to the drama of the situation, were hanging on the back and would nearly fall off every time Logan would jerk forwards or backwards (and we're talking falling off on the hard sidewalk or driveway). I looked at Susan and said "we're in big trouble when these kids have actual driver's licenses!!" It's hard to tell, but Logan has himself in a pickle right now...he's trying to turn around after having run into our tree so that he's back on the sidewalk.
Here are the boys washing out 24 little water bottles for me. We're making sand art palm tree people and needed the labels off the bottles. Logan was in charge of opening them, putting the caps in a cup, dumping out the water, and giving the empty bottles to Aiden. Aiden's job was to put each bottle on the stick end of a mixing spoon and submerge it into the hot water on the other side of the sink until it filled up and sunk to the bottom (the water was pretty hot so I didn't want him to hurt himself....hence the spoon).

The palm tree people have googly eyes....the boys were playing around with them...

....now that's pretty funny....and kinda weird!!