Declan's birthday

Declan is three! This year is probably the fastest year of my life. It literally feels like yesterday that we were celebrating this boy's 2nd birthday. But he has grown up so much.  His birthday was pretty low key and luckily he seemed okay with that.  It happened to fall on a Wednesday which was lucky for all of us as that is Tatum's day off preschool. He chose roll-up pancakes for breakfast. After that was accomplished we got to hang out with grandma for awhile and go to Culver's for lunch. Then of course, it was time for the pictures with the Happy Birthday sign.

He got to open a couple presents during the day but we saved most of them for after Brennan was home from work. One that he opened during the day was "big Dukey" from Ikea. He got the little one for his birthday last year and loves it. When we used to go to IKEA all the time in Singapore he would always grab one of the giant ones and carry it around with him. When Rex and Jennifer came out to see us in August they were nice enough to bring us a bunch of stuff from IKEA including this dog. I took this picture immediately after he opened it. It was no posed or anything. Just one of those rare perfect captures. He was pretty stoked.

Emry hung out in her birthday suit. :)

Opening presents.

New Paw Patrol of course!

Balloons.

Oh these two.

We just had brownies on his birthday and saved doing a cake for when some family could be around for it. He probably wouldn't have even noticed if we didn't do any type of special dessert on the big day, but I just can't let a birthday go past without proper recognition. And we all know proper recognition includes sugar. :)

On Sunday we did cake with some extra family and friends. Brennan whipped up this awesome Paw Patrol cake. I do deserve some credit, although really very little. Okay, so basically none. Declan could never choose just one character to have on his cake so then I thought, what if we just made the cake the "lookout" and put all his little figures on it. I gave Brennan the idea of using a paper towel roll and frosting it...and that's exactly where my help stopped. haha. Lucky for all of us Brennan is a man of many talents and managed to go along with my crazy idea and make this fabulous cake.

Pleased as punch to have everyone singing to him.



Declan at age three:

- He loves Paw Patrol. Loves is an understatement.

-His best friend is Tatum. The other day they were watching Little Einsteins and the characters said something about your best friend and Declan nodded and put his arm around Tatum. Pretty much the sweetest thing ever.

-He wants to go to Grandma's house every day. 

-He hates to wear jeans. He always says he needs to wear running pants so he can run really fast.

-He is a professional diaper-thrower-away-er. It's kind of hilarious. He will go out of his way to throw away ever diaper we change.

-He gives the best apologies. They are always immediate and so, so sweet.

-He is very stubborn but absolutely hilarious. We wouldn't know what to do without him! Happy birthday Declan!