Rowan's Third Birthday!!!

(Cross-posted to Tough Love Knitters)

Rowan is 3 years old. Can we just take a moment to marvel at that?

We couldn't celebrate his birthday on the 11th (more on that later), so we did a party with the grandparents the weekend before. We decided to have a Pigeon Party, since he totally love the Pigeon Books, and so do I.

It was very cute and laid back. I realized (today) that I had ideas for games, but I didn't actually do anything for them. We had only invited one other kiddo, and she and her parents couldn't come because SOMEONE decided to show up in their family a few weeks early. So it was only adults, so I guess we didn't need games.

I made pigeon cake pops ...

Beth gave me a cake-pop pan to try. This makes the balls with just cake, not cake mixed with frosting. So it makes them healthy, right?!

The only problem(s) with this method is:
1) when the balls get stuck in the pan. After a few batches, I found that COPIOUS amounts of Pam/cooking spray does the trick. I mean COPIOUS amounts, on both pans. Crisco/grease didn't work.
2) I only had one pan, so I could only do 12 at a time. It took about 4 batches to get through all the batter I had, which was about an hour of baking, plus about 10 minutes in between each for cooling. It took A LONG time.
3) the wrong amount of batter means to balls are not quite round. Too much leaves a little seam around the ball, and too little leaves the ball a little flat on top.

But in the end, they were pretty good.

Beaks. The cake pop book called for candy-covered sunflower seeds. You can buy these online or at baking supply stores, but only in big huge bags. I needed approximately 20. So I just took some of my candy melts, made them yellow, and covered a few seeds from my tin of trail mix.

It was ok, Probably needed to thin out the candy more (as I noticed later while dipping the pops), but not too bad.

Cake. I used this recipe, and it was AMAZING. Cut it in half, and it was STILL a lot of cake.

Dipping. Colored the candy melts blue, and thinned it out with vegetable oil. I needed to thin it A LOT more than I remember doing in the past, but it was so thick. I had just enough for 24 pops.

Eyes. Wilton makes candy eyes, but again, I didn't need 100 of them. And I was trying to do this a inexpensively as possible. I colored the eyes with gel color, white/sparking and black. It worked pretty well, though some of them "dropped" a little.

But they were yummy!!!

Decorations. God, I love Pinterest. So many Free ideas for Free decorations.

I chose the pigeon balloons ...

and pigeon toilet paper rolls (printable template here) ...

... and the classic streamers and balloons and my mom's birthday banner.

Food. Well, it was a Hot Dog party, right!!!

Hot dogs and mac & cheese (with french fried onions like at Eatery). 

And then presents. We decided on a play Coffee Maker and a balance bike. However, he's still too short for the bike. With the seat ALL the way down, he can JUST touch the ground with his toes. So I guess we'll stick with the tricycle for a few months.

Happy Birthday, kiddo!!!

Rowan is 3

Seriously, how did that happen?

Where is my baby? Wasn't he a baby at some point, not that long ago?

Nope, he's for real Three years old. I guess he's a toddler, even though he talks like a grown up. I get comments all the time about how well he talks. He especially likes to list out what's going to happen. When I say "Ok, we're going to have lunch and then take a nap", he'll say, "Nooooooo, first we have lunch THEN we read a story THEN we do potty THEN we sing a song and THEN we take a nap ". I suppose that comes from my compulsive need to make lists. 

I can't even list his favorite words, because I swear he uses all of them. He makes the best connections with words too. The other day we were driving and I said, "We're on the right track", and he said, "Like a train, we're on the right train track." He told me the photographs on the wall were "too busy". He tells me big words are "tricky". He tells me I'm driving too fast, that other drivers aren't being safe, and asks me why I'm "freaking out" a traffic circles.

He knows his ABCs, and he can count to 20 (though he gets tripped up at 13, because he says it "firteen", which sounds a lot like "fourteen"). But if you help him with 20, he can read numbers up to 60 (probably more, just haven't tried it). He's got the idea of sounding out letters to make words, and has sounded out Cat and Hat, sort of. He "works" on the computer and types letters.

He can use a mouse. Can't drag and drop yet, but we've got moving and clicking.

He likes to take selfies.

He can hit a baseball from the Tee, and is close to peddling a bike. He got a balance bike for his birthday, so we're working on balance instead of peddling. He can climb the ladder at the playground by himself.

We're working on playing outside by ourselves, which is hard for Mummy as well. But we have a backyard now, so sometimes I let him play in the backyard if I'm in the kitchen, play on the front porch if I'm in the living room, and play in the front yard and on the sidewalk if I'm on the front porch. That's about as far away as I'm willing to be. He sometimes plays upstairs by himself, though it's usually when I'm mad at him and have made it clear that I don't want to play with him anymore.

Favorite TV ... we alternate between classics like Blue's Clues and Thomas to new/old things like Bob the Builder and The Magic School Bus (mom's favorite). He knows "Mummy shows" are too scary for him.