It's Good to be 3! (A Birthday in Pictures--lots and lots of pictures)

Okay, the first few pictures are the night before Sam's birthday when Sam and Sheyna began the cake baking process.  The rest are from the big day, which was quite full and involved several costume changes (literally in one case).  Buckle up, as a lot of pictures were taken and few were left out of this monster of a pictorial blog post (close to 300 pictures).

Sam making his birthday cake with "Mama" the night before he turned three.

 

The loot (and to think a couple of weeks ago, Sheyna and Matt were wondering what we should get Sam for his birthday).

 

First present opening session and birthday breakfast

 

 

Gearing up for a subway ride (fitting enough, we took the 3) to a favorite music class (Toddler Music with Irka Mateo--just found this Wikipedia entry on her) downtown and a romp through the puddles of Bowling Green Park.

 

 

Meeting Mama for a picnic lunch downtown along the East River, giving silly raspberries when posing for pictures, and a second present opening session. (We also stopped by the old apartment building to say hello to Sam's favorite doorman and deliver him the long-promised birthday party invitation - no pictures taken.)

 

 

 

The big birthday adventure surprise of the day was finally getting the chance to board a couple of the historic ships docked at the South Street Seaport, the large Peking and smaller Ambrose. (This was mainly a surprise because Matt didn't want to over-promise in case the weather was terrible, but the rain stopped before anyone headed up the first gangplank.)

 

 

 

 

Next we headed to a favorite downtown playground (The Imagination Playground) and another music class featuring two troubadours from the Bilingual Birdies program infusing our birthday with some basic Mandarin Chinese through fun and interactive songs, then back for more playing before heading home to walk Switzerland and crash for his afternoon (and boy did he crash).

The following four pictures were taken at exactly 4:07 pm Eastern time.  This is significant because he was born at 3:07 pm Central time exactly three years earlier.

Upon waking and a reunion with Mama, Sam's day was rounded out with dinner, more presents, fielding calls from some of his fans (family), cake decorating, singing (video embedded below), cake consuming, putting Mama to bed (more raspberry kisses), and finally a night of well-deserved rest.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seems that is good to be three for Sam.  Matt and Sheyna are a bit dismayed to suddenly find that they woke up as parents of a "Preschooler," after all just yesterday he was a "Toddler."  On the positive side, Matt has a bit of optimism that his plot of telling Sam that 3 is the year of "Yes" will catch on (the word of choice throughout much of the last half of 2 was definitely "No").  Another plus was celebrating a totally diaper and accident free day during waking hours today.  Are our days of shelling out for diapers over?  Maybe the end is in sight... maybe.