A few weeks ago, when we began our countdown to turning three, I said to Porter: "On October 13th, you're gonna be the Birthday..." I fully expected him to finish my sentence with "Boy!", but instead was caught off guard when he smiled big and said "MAN!" :) Ever since then, we've made sure to refer to him by his self-proclaimed title.
As with almost all of our kiddos' birthdays thus far, we celebrated Porter's 3rd with just our immediate family. (Though we are all pretty stinkin' pumped about having birthday parties with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins next year!) It's always nice when someone's special day falls on the weekend, so we have a couple of days to work with. On Saturday morning, Kaiser had a soccer game; even though that can't really be classified as part of Porter's celebration, he does enjoy going out there to cheer his brother on.
Gettin' after that ball.
#20 on the sidelines.
Three of his biggest fans camped out at the end of the field.
Good game!
I'm not going to lie; though soccer is fun to watch and all, I was kind of ready for the game to wrap up so that we could enjoy the rest of the beautiful day at the ZOO! Porter didn't specifically request going to see the animals, but he was excited when I suggested it. The last time we were there with friends, we had seen some people riding on a train, and Kaiser was begging to go for a ride, too. So, this was our first stop after we arrived. Porter was strangely hesitant to climb aboard the "Birthday Train", but once he did, he realized that he was, in fact, glad to be there.
The brothers got their own seat.
Mommy shared her seat with these two.
Can you guess which Braly Boy is more excited??
Time to go through the tunnel!
Someone wasn't happy about having to get off when the ride was over.
Moving on to the animals...
Unfortunately, Porter's poor attitude about leaving the train was only the beginning; for the next couple of hours, Mommy and Daddy had the joy of dealing with two sons who consistently alternated between wildness and whininess. We dealt with poor listening skills and some outright disobedience. We were determined to enjoy our time together as a family and pressed on, though.
"Me? Being sassy? I have no idea what you're talking about."
Thankfully, Maloney B was super chill the whole time.
We figured that we'd best get some food in these cranky boys, so we made our way toward an eating spot. Our path, of course, took us by quite an assortment of animals, including:
A hungry, hungry panda.
Some snuggly sea otters.
A mommy + baby orangutan hangin' in their tree house.
A still-as-a-statue komodo dragon.
A huge family of naked mole rats.
We finally found an area of tables and sat down for lunch. Brett and I hoped that some PB&J, apple slices, baby carrots, and fruit snacks would perk everyone up a bit.
Maybe a little, at least.
From there, we walked on to see the lions:
Sooooooo lazy.
We also pretended to be lions.
Really silly ones.
Meerkats were sunbathing.
Rhino was soaking up some rays, too.
The last animals we stopped to see were the giraffes. Kaiser raced up the ramp ahead of me and, unbeknownst to me, snuck into a line of people who were paying to feed them. By the time I was up at the top, he was happily holding out a leafy branch which the hungry giraffe was nibbling. Oops. I called Kaiser back over to me; he had no idea that he had done anything wrong, but was none to pleased that I'd interrupted his little feeding sesh.
Sorry we fed without paying, Mr. Giraffe.
I'm sad to say that our zoo trip went completely downhill from there. It couldn't have been more apparent that both Kaiser and Porter were worn out. Mommy and Daddy were losing patience quickly, and we all just needed to get home. Kaiser sealed the deal when he reacted to one of our threats by throwing a nasty fit. It wasn't pretty, and some serious consequences were doled out right before naptime. Ugh, definitely not the ending I was hoping for to this fun family outing!
Though the late morning/early afternoon had been rough, thankfully the boys both took some long naps and awoke from them with a new outlook on life. (They had been warned that if they did not sleep, we'd have to cancel going out to dinner as we'd planned.) When choosing a place for Porter's birthday dinner, we had landed upon Moe's, since it is so laid-back and our boy loves quesadillas (plus we'd been told that kids eat free there on Saturday night -- bonus!). Well, as it turns out, we'd been misinformed about the free meals, and I don't know if it was this particular location or what, but the food was kind of "meh". Oh, well; the kiddos had fun, and I enjoyed the company of my table-mates.
Say "cheese quesadilla"!
Shared some of my burrito bowl with this chica.
Sitting on his throne.
Yogurt w/ sprinkles + chocolate glazed donut =
B-day breakfast of champs!
B-day breakfast of champs!
I had set out Porter's presents and cards the night before. Brett and I tried to figure out how we should map out the day, with church and whatnot, and decided to let him open his gifts from us right after breakfast, so that he and Kaiser had time to play with them throughout the day.
Ready and waiting.
What could it be?
Big Bro's liking the looks of this, too.
Transformers Rescue Bots Fire Station!!!
It's a keeper.
Malone's wants in on the rescue action, too.
She'll definitely make the missions interesting...
We somehow managed to pull the boys away from the fire station long enough to get dressed and ready for church. (Of course, several of the Rescue Bots action figures accompanied us in the car as we drove there.) Before we left, I sweet-talked Porter into sitting on the couch for an official "3-year-old" picture.
Yeah, it took all of 10 seconds for him to decide he was done with that.
Our family all had a wonderful morning at church, followed by another fun picnic/playtime at Mason Mill Park.
Fresh off her catnap in the car.
I can't ever push him high enough these days!
Wide open play spaces are perfect for walking practice.
Randomly refused to go down the slide on his own, but look at that huge smile after zooming down with Daddy!
Why so serious?
As per usual, we rounded up our crew and headed home shortly before 2:00. Right before the boys went down for their rest time, they got to witness Daddy retrieve a helium birthday balloon that had escaped into our 2-story living room right as we headed out the door earlier that morning. We were all pretty impressed with the successful rescue.
Who needs a ladder when you have a rake and your tiptoes?
That afternoon Porter boycotted his nap, so we planned to wrap up our evening in order to get him tucked into bed relatively early. Following dinner, we took some time to open up his remaining birthday gifts.
Iron Man jet + awesome collection of books from YaYa!
The next present was from Auntie Cindy in Pennsylvania. She sent something that is just perfect for our soon-to-be Okie.
A prospector hat?
No, goofball. A COWBOY hat!!!
Cutest cowpoke I ever did see.
His feisty cowgirl sidekick's pretty cute, too.
After all gifts were open, we moved back into the kitchen for cake. I'd asked Porter several times in the weeks leading up to his birthday what kind of cake he wanted; he started out with red velvet cheesecake (with which we'd celebrated Daddy's 32nd), then finally landed on cookies 'n cream.
What my baby wants, my baby gets.
Brett again was on video camera duty while we sang to the Man of the Hour.
(Things I love? How he starts out saying "Cheeeeese!" and then begins singing the song right along with the rest of us. Things I don't love? How horribly tone deaf I am...yet how loud I seem to be singing.)
Here are a few still shots of our big boy trying his hardest to blow out those pesky candles:
Filling up those lungs.
Not as easy as it looks.
Always there to lend a hand (or a breath).
Ready to eat this thing!
I think he approved. :)
That cookies 'n cream made quite a mess, so it was straight to bath with the three cake-eaters. Once everyone was squeaky clean, we came back downstairs to Skype with Pops & the Gang. Uncle Justin + Aunt Amanda + Aunt Cami + Uncle Carl + Emerson + Ellis + Aunt Kir Kir + Uncle Kent + Connor + Sydney + William were all over at his house for dinner.
Connecting...
Now, as you can imagine, Skyping with 17 individuals can get just a tad cray cray. It was amazing to see the faces of so many people who we love, but our chat didn't last too long. (Again, can't wait until this time next year, when we can be in the same room with them!)
At long last, it was time to head upstairs to tuck Porter into bed. He and Kaiser did their whole "bouncing off the walls at bedtime" thing, but that didn't take long to wear off; then, the skipped nap along with all of the activity of the weekend caught up with him, and the kid was OUT.
We hope you had a fabulous weekend and felt so special and so loved, Birthday Man -- because that's most certainly what you are!
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