3rd Birthday Celebration

I promise that this is the last post about Alexis, Jack, and Faith's 3rd birthday. I know six posts about one birthday seems a little crazy, but since we are celebrating three birthdays at once I want to do it justice!

We flew to Michigan on their actual birthday since that was the day tickets were the least expensive, but we figured the kids wouldn't really care since they don't know much about celebrating birthdays anyway. We did want to make their actual birthday a little special, though, so we brought the whole family to Rebel Donut in Albuquerque and let each kid pick out their own donut. We have let them choose at the grocery store, but this was the first time they got to do it at a "real" donut store and they really enjoyed it. We took our donuts home and put three candles in each kids' donut and sang to them separately. They enjoyed blowing out the candles for the first time. We had a few presents for the kids, so we had them take turns opening, which went surprisingly well. Micah then took took the kids to the park for a bit so that I could get some last minute packing done, and then we ate a quick lunch and headed to the airport.

They decided to hold hands to walk into the donut store

So many options..

Jack wanted the pink frosting

Alexis wanted the red one

Faith also wanted the pink one, which is no surprise at all since that is "her color," which we designated to her when she was born to help us tell the girls apart, but now she wants everything to be pink.

The girls waiting patiently while Jack opens his present

Faith's turn

Lexi's turn. They each got to open three gifts on their birthday at home, and then we had a lot of little things for them to open while we traveled.

In the car ready to head to the airport. Technically it was almost nap time so everyone was a bit tired.

The travel itself went okay. Since we traveled in the afternoon all three kids missed their nap and we had a little trouble with the movies on our devices so all three couldn't watch and listen at the same time, but it was soooo much easier than traveling with babies.

Faith opening a gift on the first flight

The flight attendant on the first flight was super friendly and she asked the pilot if the kids could sit in the cockpit. Only Jack was interested by the time the flight landed, though, but he seemed to enjoy the view of all of the buttons.

Lexi had a hard time on the first flight because we only had one car seat along (we have two in Michigan), and she was pretty jealous that Faith got the "prized seat." So on the second flight she got the car seat and the iPad all to herself, and she was perfectly content.

On the second flight Jack was watching the new Peanuts movie and Faith wanted to watch too, so Micah switched seats with her. She couldn't hear the movie and after awhile she asked for her headphones, so we gave them to her to wear even though we couldn't plug them in since Jack was already listening to the movie, but she didn't seem to notice that she still couldn't hear the movie once she put them on. Sitting next to Micah on an airplane with the kids along was a rare moment!

We didn't get to my parents' house until 11:00 p.m. so we didn't get to truly celebrate the kids' birthday that day. We wanted to do a real birthday party with my family in Michigan, which ended up being a couple of days after the actual birthday. We decided to make tacos and my SIL Jodi offered to buy a piñata, so we ended up having a Mexican themed birthday party complete with margaritas for the adults. Miraculously, all three kids napped on the afternoon of the party so all were in good moods and there were zero meltdowns all evening. I really enjoyed celebrating the kids and hanging out with my whole family, which hasn't happened since we were in Michigan 10 months ago.

Most of us at dinner

Getting the piñata set up. Notice Jack's balloon sword which Grandpa made for him. Jack is really into swords right now.

All of the grandkids with Grandpa, Grandma, and the giant donkey piñata.

Alexis was up first

Faith was up second, but she didn't last very long as she seemed intimidated by everyone laughing and cheering.

Jack

Cousin Adelle

Cousin Brayden

Uncle Kent

Yep, even I got a turn!

Micah whacked off a couple of legs and the kids started looking a little worried. It is hard to explain a piñata to 3-year-olds.

Uncle Kyle got all of the prizes and candy out.

The kids inspecting the candy and toys.

J, A, F

It's not a perfect, but for $14 it did the trick as the kids loved having a guitar cake (made out of cupcakes and a crazy amount of frosting). Plus each child got their own cupcake with candles.

F, A, J...so excited for the cake!

Alexis with her candles. We sang Happy Birthday to each kid individually this year. In the past we just sang once and added all of their names, but now that they know what's going on I think it's important to do some things separately. Unfortunately it was too windy to light the candles, but the kids still pretended to blow them out.

Jack

Faith

Faith

Alexis

Jack

Adelle and Brayden....it's even hard for big kids to keep their faces clean with that much frosting.

Alexis excited about presents

Little explorers walking around with their binoculars

More presents

A little batting coaching from Uncle Kent. I love that the kids are so comfortable with their cousins and uncles even though we don't see them very often.

We had so much fun celebrating Alexis, Jack, and Faith and they have felt very special this week. I am so thankful that we were able to celebrate their first three birthdays with family even though we live so far away. We were in Michigan a week before their 1st birthday, so we celebrated a little early, and then Micah's parents came down for their 1st birthday weekend. Both sets of grandparents came to ABQ for their 2nd birthday. And we were able to come to Michigan on their 3rd birthday. Maybe we should make traveling to Michigan around the kids' birthday a tradition since it's so much fun to celebrate with family!