Mark's 3rd!

Our little guy turned three last month! It's hard to believe! Even though he is such a tall boy and everyone thinks he is older, he is still our little baby in every way! We celebrated his birthday with the family at the White Fence Farm.  He played on the playground, fed the animals at the petting zoo, and ate a huge fried chicken dinner.

 

 

He was a little uncertain about the staff singing Happy Birthday to him with sparklers. He was too shy to look up at anyone.

But once home, he loved every second of his birthday cake and the singing. Mark wanted to pick his cake out, not make it. So, we went to Whole Foods and looked at a gazillion delicious cakes. He decided on a chocolate mousse pie. The cakes were of no interest to him.  We added raspberries to the top and he was so happy!

 

Mark also got to do a little skiing for his birthday. A day with Nana and then a day with the family a couple weeks later. More pictures to come from that trip.

 

Mark is such a happy boy and very talkative around people he knows well. He LOVES to help us around the house with pretty much any task: cooking, cleaning, building, gardening, using tools to fix anything, sorting laundry, you name it.

 Here's what we'll always remember about Mark during his third year of life:

• He is a complete sweet tooth. He loves anything involving candy, chocolate, gummy, juice. Thank goodness he lets us brush his teeth really well.
• He is the sweetest, most loving boy. He gives the best bear hugs, the wettest kisses, and is a complete snuggler!
• He can throw a royal tantrum when he doesn't get what he wants. This usually occurs when we deny him any sort of sugary treat that he wants.
• He is madly in love with the Dollar Tree and asks to go everyday. He literally cannot get enough of the animals that grow up when you put them in water.
• Rescue bots and these robot dinosaur toys are also one of his favorite right now.
• You usually see him running around pantless.
• He will talk your ear off when he has a story to tell and he uses his hands and eyes so dramatically when he talks.
• We have to limit the number of books we read at night or he would keep us up all night reading. We often find him sitting in his room just looking at books quietly.
• Pretty sure he will be some sort of mathematician or engineer. He is so good with numbers and can fix/change/build so many things. He wants nothing to do with letters or colors.
• He cannot say the /k/ sound and it usually turns into /t/ and he eliminates the /s/ sound at the beginning of words. This makes deciphering conversations quite interesting at times.
• Some phrases lacking the /s/ sound: "I'm piderman," "You be uperman," "I want you 'it down," we go wimming pool?" "help, my hand 'tuck"
• phrases lacking /k/: "I play tat with Ibelle," "otay," "Mom, I have tarrot please?", "tan you play with me now?" "tan I go with you?" 
• The list goes on and on. Let's hope we conquer this soon or I imagine we'll be making visits to a speech pathologist.

• He is the clumsiest kid around. I credit his long legs and big feet for this. Although he trips about 3x a day, he gets right back up and keeps on going. His knees are a disaster.
• His best friend ever is Isabelle. He wants and does everything she does. They are starting to play really well together although we have our moments where the girl play vs. boy play just don't agree and it becomes an argument on what to do.....play kitty cats or play power ranger.

No matter what, we love our little guy more than the whole wide world. Happy Birthday, Mark! Here's to another great year together! This was when he was closer to 2 and we love when he sings around the house. Between him singing and Belle dancing, we have quite the concert hall.