Happy Birthday Connoroo!

It's hard to believe my little man turned THREE this year!  I feel like he was just born yesterday and, at the same time, I feel like he's been with me forever.  We had a quiet family party at home on his birthday and then went to his favorite place, Hop Lop, on Saturday.  I thought, this time I'll get tons of great Hop Lop pictures.  Well, I did, except that I discovered afterwords that the lens had fingerprint smudges all over it and I had taken off the feature that reduces shaking when you take pictures.  SO, most of them are blurry :(  But they are cute anyway.  Connor wore himself out to the point that when I asked him if he was ready to go he said, "Yeah, I think so."  And then promptly fell asleep in the stroller.  Normally it's like pulling teeth to get a kid out of a place like Hop Lop.  We were there for over 4 hours.  It was the perfect birthday celebration for our active little Connoroo.  As he watched me posting this blog he has been telling me he wants to go there right now.

A picture out our window on Connor's big day

It was a winter wonderland

Here he is with his train cake that I made him.  He couldn't stop talking about how he was going to have a train cake, so a train it was.  Notice the cute little marshmallow smurf conductor.  European candy is sometimes so cool.

Singing "Happy Birthday"

Blowing out candles

Arrrrgh!  I'm a pirate!

He got a broomstick pony

which he promptly rode around

Opening more presents alongside his straws and cooking supplies

For some reason before he blew out his candles the second time for his grandparents on skype, he decided he needed a party hat.  Since I didn't have one on hand, I made one hastily out of Christmas wrapping paper.  It made him very happy.

Since it's Christmas paper, he looks like an elf

but a super cute elf

Cake and hat.  Now he's ready

He also got play cooking items since he loves making pretend dinner.  This is the next day.  I made him dough just for the occasion

pat it

cut it

Down the slide with daddy

It's a really big slide!

Loving it

Look at that happy face

Stella really wants to lick everything

She thinks it's really funny

hop hop

Hahahaha.  He looks like he's about to fall asleep here

going, going, going

so busy

These are some cool air guns that shoot balls.  Connor LOVED them

Ready, aim, FIRE!

He got pretty good at it

Dad is helping him.  He would gather balls for Connor so Connor could just shoot and shoot and shoot

Don't worry.  Stella had a blast too

Swing swing swing

good times

Big Ball!

even bigger octopus!

cuties

Balancing

Seesaw!

Sliding down the steps as fast as he can

Bounce house

Blocks

Making it really tall

Over the bridge

Taking a break with Stella

Up and over

Too fun

cute little fam

Dad lifting Connor

Cars are fin, but not the trafic

up and up

ready to slide

Dooowwwnnnn

They went down so many times

Riding bikes

Connor was obsessed with the hockey room.  He was in there for so long and got so sweaty.  He was running non stop.

smacking the ball

Love how he's learning to hold the stick

Daddy vs. Connor

Go Connor go!

Just couldn't get enough of this

In front of the fun house mirror

You can tell I had to take these myself

She's not so sure about this