Finley Turns 3!

Since Dan's birthday in October, we have been counting the days until Finley's birthday.  Lucky for him, we got to start celebrating a few days early when we had dinner at Henry and Simon's house on Tuesday.  After a delicious dinner of pasta pipes, peas, and meatballs--a plate full of delicious cupcakes came out and we all sang "Happy Birthday" to the smiley little guy.

Birthdays require lots of planning and preparation (if you are a birthday lover like me) and so on Thursday, I baked mini and regular sized chocolate cupcakes that Finley helped me decorate that afternoon.  He had requested green chocolate cupcakes...yes, green chocolate.  His favorite color must be involved in all facets of his/our life. Lucky for him, I came across some "mint chocolate" icing - seriously, it was a very exciting moment in the baking aisle of the supermarket.  Here is our sous chef putting sprinkles on his mini cupcakes that he would share with his friends at school.

Then, we worked on the big ones for after his birthday dinner.

Birthday gifts and cards had been arriving in recent weeks/days and Finley showed great self control allowing us to simply pile them up in the dining room.  Future years may not be so easy :) But when the big day finally came, he was thrilled to get to open his presents! He even got to open one before we headed off to school that morning. It turned out to be something that he has been dreaming about for months, Cranky the Crane to go with his Thomas trains! Thank you GG and Grandpa!!!

Finley also enjoyed the gigantic card they sent!

When I finally tore him away for his new obsession, he called Grandpa on his pretend phone and said, "Hi Grandpa.  I've got Cranky now for my birthday.  Thank you for sending him to me."  I melted.  This birthday was getting off to a great start!

When I picked Finley up from school, he seemed to have had a great day at school being the Birthday Boy.  We went and picked out a green star balloon with a green string at a local party store and then went home to play with Cranky.

Dan came home early and we got ready to have some friends over for dinner.  Finley helped me set the table for both his birthday and Shabbat before going off to pick up the pizza we had ordered with Dan. While he was gone, our guests arrived! Dave, Gabi, Charlotte, and Joey were ready to see the Birthday Boy upon his return and we all sat down to dinner.  We enjoyed wine/grape juice, challah, pizza, and salad.  

Then Charlotte and Finley excused themselves and went off to play.  Charlotte came back in at one point and asked me, "Can you come get us when it is cupcake time?"  "Of course," I assured her.  How sweet!  We tidied up the table and then it was time for the main event!

Finley loved hearing us all sing to him and even mouth the words along with us.

He seems dangerously close to the flames here, but I promise he was in no danger as he tried to blow out all three of the candles.

Yum!  Charlotte and Joey gave Finley some wonderful musical instruments (harmonica, kazoo, and flutaphone) and then Finley and Charlotte took off playing their band all over the downstairs.

But they kindly paused for a photo.

Our small guests got into their PJs and took off for home and I put Dagny to bed.  Then, Finley got to dive into the pile of other gifts.  I only photographed him opening the neat pirate ship from Grammy and Granddad because after that, Dan and I had to wrangle all the pieces out of the box and I never picked up the camera again :)

"It's a ship like I was wanting!"

Two pirates and a shark!

Finley is a lucky guy and got many wonderful presents from friends and family on his birthday.  We appreciate everyone thinking of him.  We can't believe he is already three and we are so proud of him! This has been a big year of change for Finley with a new sister, new house, new school, new friends, new beds, and on and on.  What will his fourth trip around the sun bring? Who knows, but we are excited to find out - love you, buddy!