Kye turned three on March 4th. It fell on a Sunday this year so we did his party the day before his actual birthday. It all really worked out well and I enjoyed that we all got to spend his birthday together since it was on a weekend!
That morning we did our tradition of waking Kye up by singing happy birthday to him. You can see the video of that here! I love how the first thing he says is “I got big!” Our church routine right now is that Mom comes over at 9ish and the three of them go to class then I bring Brittlynn in time for actual service at 10:30. It just doesn’t make sense to try to take Britt to class right now…I mean one of us would have to be holding her the whole time to try to get her to sleep (it’s her nap) so we couldn’t pay attention anyway so I stay back because that way I can pump for the feeding she misses while at church 🙂 Since it was Kye’s birthday Mom came over early so he could open her presents.
He was SO excited about the easel! We have a junky one we got mega cheap at Ikea but it’s not one that you can really paint and everything with and the one she got him is AWESOME!
After church Mom snapped a couple family picture for us before Britt went down for her nap.
Silly Faces
My favorite!!! I’m SO glad Mom doesn’t mind playing photographer every now and then 😉
At this point Brittlynn ate again at 2 and Kye napped until 3:30. We put Kye down for his nap MEGA early and planned to get him up as soon as Britt was done eating so we could go have some family birthday fun. I have only taken Kye to Jump N’ Jacks once and it was last summer (remember?). Zach’s never been to a place like that so I thought it’d be a great thing to do for Kye’s big day. Zach actually had just helped close an Aflac account with a new jump place in town called Leapin’ Lizards so he wanted to show loyalty and go there. It was VERY similar to Jump ‘N Jacks…but it’s over by the mall while Jump N Jacks is by our house. We were going to dinner by the mall anyway so it worked out great! Once Britt finished nursing we hoped in the car!
On the way I pulled out Kye’s special birthday cd. Growing up my mom had each of us this Captain Zoom cassette tape that she played every year on our birthday for us. It’s a silly song that says your name in it a bunch of times. We LOVED it. Of course once I had kids I searched for the same thing for them…and couldn’t believe that they still make them (on cds now though, duh)! You can order them here (b/c you know you so want one). I was proud of Zach because the song gets pretty annoying pretty quick but Kye wanted to hear it over and over and over. At first Zach said he only got to listen to it one more time but then he thought about it and let him just keep listening to it. I mean it’s ONE day a year ya know?!?! Here’s a video of the first time Kye heard the song (we’ve played it every year but he never remembers).
Right when we got there Kye went straight for the super tall bounce house…Zach was super impressed with his climbing skills
Britt soaking it all in
Shootin’ some Hoops
This is the first super unattractive picture of her…so I couldn’t bring myself to delete it haha
I wore my Stella and Dot charm necklace with Kye’s initial and birthstone in honor of his big day!
They have a toddler area set up with toys and cars and lots of things for smaller kids to enjoy, Kye ran for the kitchen…and couldn’t take his eyes off the tv. They had one tv playing cartoons and one playing sports. So I basically talked to myself because my guys were zoned out 😉
From 3:30 until 5:00 was Brittlynn’s shortest nap of the day so I wasn’t overly stressed about not being at home for it. Unlike her brother she is SUCH a cuddler and will easily (and happily) fall asleep in our arms (yet won’t stay asleep in her car seat). We never, ever get to hold her to sleep so we both took turns enjoying it. She never has the paci at home but it helps her fall asleep when out!
While there weren’t many differences in Jump ‘N Jacks and Leaping Lizards, I think Kye preferred Leapin’ Lizards because they had a dance floor set up with music playing. He danced for over thirty minutes! A bunch of older kids (probably like 9 or 10) were over there and seeing kids that age sometimes makes me sooo nervous for the future. The girls were SO sassy and were dancing with these little attitudes and it just made me want to smack them. And the boys were SO rude. Climbing where they shouldn’t, running up the slides, etc. Of course none of these kids had parental supervision either. I ended up getting onto one of the boys (yes, I’m that Mom…) and you could tell he isn’t disciplined much at home because he ATE IT UP. Once I got onto him he was so much better then he kept following me around wanting me to see all of his tricks and such. It made me sad for him because he was just wanting someone to pay attention to him, ya know? Here‘s a video of Kye dancing (he’s more marching but it fits the song). He LOVED it and didn’t want to stop…I had to coax him away!
Kye realllly wanted me to go into the pirate ship with him so I did. He thought it was hilarious to see me inside the jump house and he kept showing me everything.
Daddy’s turn for the sleeping baby
I was so glad Kye didn’t see this lawn mower until right before we left or he would have “mowed” the entire time (Crissy knows what I’m talking about…the kid LOVES to mow!)
Brittlynn’s next feeding was at 5:00 so we left a little early to head over to Red Lobster. We had two gift cards from when Brittlynn was born…one was to Smokin’ Pig (thanks Kim!) and the other to Red Lobster (thanks Katie!). I let Kye pick where he wanted to go for his birthday and he picked seeing the lobsters. On the way there we called my dad back (he called during Kye’s nap) so Kye could talk to him and it was cute how excited Kye was about everything and how much he loved talking all about his birthday and his party!
He ordered, what else, chicken and fries 😉
I LOVE Red Lobster but our local one needs some serious updating. The tables were so badly angled that Kye’s crayons would roll off. No joke. And Zach could barely fit in the seat and had a mega tough time feeding Brittlynn!
It was not the most amazing meal of our lives. Our waiter was AMAZING and was so patient with us with everything. Brittlynn would not eat. That morning I woke up and felt SO sick. At this point I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch on Friday. I had a mild fever but refused to slow down on such a special day for Kye. I pushed through but it made no sense for Zach’s meal to get interrupted by Britt’s issues when I couldn’t even touch mine without wanting to puke (I never did actually throw up…my issues were the other kind…). I couldn’t even semi-enjoy the bread 🙁 I ended up taking Brittlynn out and just going to the front of the restaurant in the waiting area to feed her so no one else would be disturbed. I got some hot water from the bar and let her bottle re-warm and that really helped. She likes that junk smokin’ hot!
We made sure to tell them that it was Kye’s birthday and the waiter did a wonderful job of making him feel special. A few of them came over and even sang Happy Birthday to him…you can watch the video here! When the guys finished eating (which didn’t take long…Kye has this obsession with to go boxes. He LOVES to take his food “in the car” and eats it on our way home from places. So random) they met me at the front and I let Zach change her diaper while Kye and I enjoyed the lobsters. Our waiter (should have gotten his name..he really did rock) came by and offered to let Kye pet one. Score!
Once I did it he was totally down for it and thought it was so cool
We headed to the car to get home and I about DIED when Kye said “wait we gotta take a picture!” Music to my ears 😉 We’ve been to Red Lobster a few times with Katie to celebrate birthdays and we always get pictures out front in this little window thing and Kye wanted to get pictures there. So cute!!!
Showing off the rock he picked up
Once we got home we got Brittlynn into the bed for her nap and decided to do presents first. It was getting dark and we wanted a certain present to be seen in the daylight 🙂
I seriously spend next to NOTHING on Kye for his birthday. ToysRUs has this great rewards program thing and anything you buy in the month of December you earn a percentage back in rewards. I had over $50 in free ToysRUs reward money and you can also use that money with other coupons and offers. I just shop smart and ended up getting majority of his gifts either free or for under $5 🙂
Every kid needs some of those plastic chunky skates right?!?!
More legos for his table
Playmobil Firetruck
For Christmas Santa gave Kye a choo choo but it ended up not working…so we told Kye we’d send it back to Santa and get him a new one. Trains are hard to find! I ended up getting him a Geotrax one directly from Fisher Price. It’s a recreation of the train scene in Toy Story 3 and he LOVED it. I got it on sale after Christmas but it was still expensive. I can’t imagine anyone paying full price for it (over $100 for a plastic toy that keeps a kids attention for like 10 min???).
Kye with all of his presents!
He waited by the front door with his eyes “closed”
Here’s a video of him when he saw his gift (ps: GREAT recording Zach…he gets so concerned about the dogs that he misses the actual moment). At least I got this picture, this face is too cute.
Did y’all have a Power Wheels growing up?!?! Brandon (my brother) and I LOVED them. All the kids on our street had them and were hardcore into it. I wanted Kye to have one but couldn’t BELIEVE how expensive they are. Like over the amount we spend total on holiday gifts for him. We went to a birthday party in November where the kid got one and Kye was SO into it so I ran home that day and started looking for used ones. Actually ToysRUs was having a special (awesome coincidence!) and they were a GREAT deal. I ended up having a TON of gift cards I’d been saving (from gift returns or ones you earn when they have specials and stuff on diapers there). Anyways after the discounts and my gift cards I got the thing for only $95. Brand new. What! What! I know, be jealous of my deal hunting skills 😉 That and my hoarding obsession with gift cards haha
Daddy showing him how to operate the thing
Here‘s a video of Kye’s first time driving
He took awhile to actually get into driving it. For a couple weeks he would just put stuff in it and play the radio. Thankfully he’s gotten into it and is a pro at it now (I need to get another video!)
Talking on the radio!
I had great intentions to bake Kye a birthday cake, I really did. However, I felt terrible so after his party Saturday I hit the bed. There simply wasn’t enough time on Sunday to bake one so Zach ran after church and got Kye a birthday donut. Since Zach took Kye to get donuts back when Britt was first born, Kye talks about them every time we pass Daylight Donuts on the way to school. It was the perfect birthday treat and it worked out great because we had PLENTY of birthday cake left from the party and didn’t really need any extra cake to eat.
Here is the video of us singing to him (love how he sings along)…again my husband is just cursed with video taping haha. I set it up so we wouldn’t have to hold it and then he stands RIGHT in front of it. So you get a nice view of Zach’s butt too.
YUM!
We ended Kye’s big 3rd birthday by seeing how much he has grown since last year. It stinks we don’t have a marker for when he turned one because we didn’t live here yet, but it’ll be fun to add Britt’s marks on her first birthday and to see how much they grow each year. Since Kye can still wear all of his same clothes that he was wearing last year I figured he didn’t grow very much. He surprised me though! He was SO excited about doing this!
Pretty decent change! (And I made sure Zach didn’t cheat!)
It was a busy, full day and Kye loved every second of it. It’s so fun to make a BIG deal out of birthdays. It makes it harder to get all emotional and sad about my baby growing up 😉
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Aw – it looks like you guys had a GREAT day! I love that they're getting to the age now where we can really CELEBRATE with them! Kye is such an awesome kid and I'm so happy that LL has him as a friend!
First off yes, totally jealous of your MAD shopping SKILLS!! 🙂 Looks like Kye had an awesome birthday! Yay for big boys! Also if you still have your receipt from Red Lobster look and see if it lists the servers name. Usually they do or have a server #. Thanks for the shout out!! We'll have to try Smokin Pig next time we're in your neck of the woods!
Looks like he had a fabulous birthday! My son turned 3 on March 13th. I love your blog, and am a faithful reader haha! You have a beautiful family 🙂