Prince George turns 3

The day finally arrived -- George turned three and had a Thomas the Train birthday party!  For the last couple of months he's been telling anyone who will listen about his plans.  He was overcome with joy when we all sang "Happy Birthday" to him.

He was overcome with joy when he opened his Thomas umbrella.

And his Thomas & Friends train set.

The girls gave Prince George a royal train salute.

I love an overblown little kid's birthday party as much as anyone, but this evening's family-only party was an absolute delight.  I love how much the whole family dotes on George.  So this is how youngest children become what youngest children are?  I see.

He can verbally, correctly answer that he is three, but holding up the correct number of fingers is still a challenge.

We celebrated earlier today with a day trip downtown on Trax.  It was the most convenient, least expensive way I could think of to take him on a train ride for his birthday.  He loved it.

He was contemplative at times.  Or maybe just bored.  He did say, "This is a really long train ride."

We met up the our Aunt Alison and went to the children's exhibit at the Church History Museum.  Bethany was working with Cannon and Faith to be Mexican dancers.  Cannon's dancing quite quickly morphed into ninja fighting- as many of his activities do.

Yes, yours truly got in on the action as well.

Cannon enjoying a moment of glory.

Oh, side note about Cannon:  While eating our sandwiches on a patch of grass today Cannon says, "There are two things I don't appreciate about grass--Grass stains and sometimes getting wet."  

He makes me smile.

Here we are waiting to catch the train home.  I love this picture just because of Faith's expression.  She was not happy with me because I denied her the Book of Mormon Go Fish cards she desired from the gift shop.  

How cruel of me.

Where was Clark for all our celebrations?

He is off on a 50-mile backpacking scout camp through the Uinta mountains.  And I'll tell you the truth.  On Monday when he left I was just fine-- maybe even a little happy.   I wasn't worried about him and he's been gone a lot this summer, so no big deal.  But then he missed George's super fun Thomas the Train party today and our adventure downtown.  I'm still not worried about him on the 50, but I am missing him.  Kind of a lot.   At the very least, he keeps things very interesting around our house.   I think I'll be very happy when summer is over and all of my people are back from all their summer adventures and we're back to our usual schedule.  I am, however, afraid that after all their adventures, home might not be exciting enough for them!

Want to see something cool?   Well, a little bit sad, but mostly cool.  THIS is how much a boy can change in 2 years.  His first 50-miler was right after he turned 12 and now he's 14. 

I'm sure this little boy will never go and do that to his mother.