Elliott's 3rd birthday

Elliott turned one on a Sunday.  We were all home together.  He turned two on a Monday.  Spencer was at school and Michael was at work.  I was home and Elliott and I had a nice little day together.  This year I felt some sort of explainable desire to have Elliott home with both of his parents for his birthday.  It was just something I wanted.  A sick brother was an unexpected bonus to our family togetherness.  Elliott turned three on a Tuesday and once again, we were all home together.

The day started with our usual December morning routine of looking for Winston.

We found him in Elliott's room.  He had hitched a ride on a balloon and brought Elliott a card and a coloring book.

Elliott also had three balloons from mommy and daddy, compliments of a late night trip to the dollar store.

We ate breakfast and then asked Elliott if he was ready to open his presents.

What 3 year old could say no to this pile?

Doc McStuffins stethoscope.  

It was the cheapest gift in the bunch and is definitely his favorite.

Kinetic sand

Coffee maker.  

The kid loves coffee.

Count and Learn Cookie Jar

Slice-a-rific pizza playset

Reusable sticker book

Battle at Shipwreck Falls

Bowl for the kinetic sand

Card from Spencer

Jake's Sailwagon from Spencer

We let them play for a long time, but parents were busy cleaning up so there are no pictures.

After play time it was work time.  Work, in the form of 3 year pictures and 3 year pictures with blocks.

This was the first year that it wasn't horrendous to take them.  There was no crying whatsoever and just minimal goofing around.

Blocks first

Now for general 3 year pictures.

We hemmed and we hawed and we debated and we voted about whether to leave the staples in the pictures or to edit them out. I know that the staples are what he "truly" looked like on the day he turned 3, but in the end, we decided that we don't like them and they had to go.

Official 3 year

Official 3 year with blocks 

After Elliott's work it was time for the parents to work, in the form of Christmas shopping.  Ugh.  Once all of that was done we picked up a pizza (Elliott's choice) for dinner.

He took a bite and then we decided we should put a candle in it.

And then we gave him purchased cake because we didn't really have any cake left over from the party and he really, really wanted cake after dinner.  Oh, and somehow these pictures got out of order.  Pretend they are not.

After pizza and cake we drove to Scottsdale to go to the Christmas celebration at McCormick-StillmanTrain Park.  This was the first time we have attended this particular event.  It was crazy busy.

Michael got in line (a very loooooooong line) when we got there and the kids and I walked around and looked at all the lights and the miniature trains.

There were also knock-off children's characters.  

Finally, close to an hour after Michael got in line it was our turn for the train ride!

I took a ton of pictures and most of them are not great.  It's really hard to take a decent picture of lights at night from a pretty fast moving train.  Hopefully you will still feel the magic of the night.

A man who was about 8 feet tall took these of us.

We had also bought tickets for the carousel.  Thank goodness the line for that took 30 seconds.

And then.  It was all over.  We came home and put our 3 year old to bed and we all followed soon after.