Gray-Gray's Birthday

Gray had his birthday on a Friday and this and since the boys don't have school Friday's, (Charter School home school day) and Daddy happened to have the day off, we all went to the S.D. Wild Animal Park.    We had a fun day and at the end Gray got to pick a stuffed animal for a present.  (Except he wouldn't cooperate and kept drifting over to the cheap plastic toys so finally Doug picked a Cheetah for him so we could just go home for-the-love!)
ANYWAY...!  Highlights included Wallaby up-close, Baby Gorilla, and Butterfly Exhibit.  It was a fun day.

Gabey was full of questions.

Well hello!

The baby was playing in the mote and was hard to see but he came up to taunt his family a few times.

Sammy would not leave until a butterfly landed on him.  Finally, I broke the rules and picked one up and stuck it on his hand.  Then another one came over, landed on top of the first one and they both flew off.

Baby bat.  Doug uses pictures like this to torture his Bat-hating mother.  Very mean of him.

Since this was his third birthday, (odd year) he didn't qualify for a "friend" party.  Instead he got to share a "family" party with his cousin Ashlin who turned 17 the day before he turned 3.  Ashlin is his favorite babysitter so he was okay with it!  

(Fun fact: they would share a birthday had Gray been born in the states.  But since he was born in Japan, his birthday is the day after hers.) 

As an added bonus, my sister Karie was in town with her family so they all got to come too.

We had a big party for them at our pool with Costco pizza and cake.  Of course, we had our neighbors the L's come over too, cause they're practically like family.  All in all, it was a fun day with our cute little tyrant.  

Three candles for Gray, seventeen for Ash!

Looking Back:

Lucky Baby got to go to Australia while brothers stayed home.

Big in Japan

First bath from Grandma Fae

Just chillin' in Hawaii with some turtles!

What I get for leaving out the lunch stuff.

At Daddy's new office in California!

Daddy's Mascot

Tahoe for Thanksgiving

At the beach

"Just hold me every single second Mom!!!"

In Mommy's old t-shirt

Chubbiest baby of them all

Newborn-9 pounder

Don't mess!

A Sticky Situation

Today got off to a rocky start.

I was in the downstairs bathroom when Gabe tried to push his way in. 

“Gabey, go out!  I’ll be done in a minute!”  I said shoving the door closed and locking it this time.

“Mom, I need to teo you someting!”

(Me through the door)

HONEY!  Mommy is going potty!  Leave me alone for a minute!  I’ll talk to you when I come out!

We went back and forth like that a few times until finally Gabe gave up.  I read a page of my book (just to prove a point) and then came out.

Gabe was standing in the hall.

“Mommy, Gway-Gway is making a mess with da peanut butto.

Ahh.

Okay, so maybe today wasn’t the day to take a stand for quiet bathroom time.

This is what greeted me in the kitchen:

I personally don’t think it would be very comfortable having Peanut Butter packed into all my face holes, but Gray was enjoying himself immensely. 

Just in case you’re wondering if you ever find yourself with a similar mess on your hands (and on your table and floor and child…)

Plain water doesn’t work. 

Adding baby soap only makes the peanut butter soapy, but doesn’t do anything to move or remove it.

A fingernail brush, however, proved most effective at scouring the peanut butter off the surface of Gray's head. 

Just so you know for future reference.

P.S.  A few hours after these photos were taken, we took a spontaneous road trip.  We're in Utah!