Birthday Suit

A little blow-up water slide action. This is the only photo
where he's wearing a swim suit, not his birthday suit.
What can we say? The kid likes to be naked.

Tagg turned 3 years old today. Can you believe it?! It seems like just yesterday that an angel placed him in my arms and gave us the greatest, most unbelievable gift you could ever imagine. And now that little bundled-up bald burrito-baby walks, talks, counts, spells, orders us around, goes potty by himself, reads books, has a fake laugh, an occasional mohawk, and knows that little tiny cars and balls are choking hazards for his baby sister.

Tagg and his friend Greyson whose birthday is basically
4th of July weekend. They both think fireworks shows are
created specially for their birthdays.

Tagg is definitely three...he's a pretty good negotiator. Me: let's read a book before bed. Him: how about three books?

With a couple of exceptions, the ONLY non-Cars related gift he got.
Apparently, I need to buy stock in Disney Pixar while he's under 10.

He's getting picky about food. PB&J, waffles, french fries, orange juice, and any candy or chocolate are high on the hit list. Whatever happened to the watermelon craze?!

Cars = Catatonic.

Tagg is fascinated with iPhones and the games he plays on them, especially Angry Birds (finally learned how to shoot the birds the right direction...used to just aim them at the ground to hear them squawk), Balloonimals, and the spelling and matching games.

Tagg likes to repeat back our parenting techniques. Him: Daddy. You stop mowing the lawn. Put away the lawn mower. Right now. One...Two... Really. And he actually gives us "the hand" on occasion.

The new bike was not nearly as cool as the new Cars scooter that Grama and
Bompa gave him. I think he'll dig it around Christmas.
You know, when it's all snowy and stuff. Should be perfect.

He likes to swing his stuffed animals on the swing-set and take them down the slide including the daddy's patented "underdog" maneuver.

He's in swimming lessons and Little Gym but really, his favorites are still "running fast like Lightning McQueen ka-chow" around the yard and the neighborhood, and jumping on anything. He's learning baseball and basketball but his favorite is running. He starts pre-school soon and still loves to read. He's tracing numbers and letters when he reads, and is trying to get a handle on the counting thing, he does puzzles meant for 6 year olds, and knows the words to more songs than Scott and I combined.

One of his other favorite gifts was a recordable Good Night Moon book from Nana and Papa. I don't know why but that one brought tears to my eyes the first time I heard it played. He reads/listens to that and I Love You All the Time a lot. I wish I had my grandparents voices reading me my favorite books, somewhere other than in my head. Very cool.

Getting ready for cake with muscle arms. Bear in mind, the cake already
hit the floor a couple of hours before party time when he saw it
and pulled it off the counter for a "snack" and then he
grabbed a good handful of frosting before the actual singing.
It really is all about the cake.

Tagg insisted that we have daddy's fireworks after the party at about 11.
Ouch. So we sat in the back of the truck and watched the show. Thank goodness
our neighbors spent about a ga-jillion dollars on fireworks. Daddy's were still the favorite!

Unfortunately, Tagg was in a pretty cranky mood for his birthday. Unusual, but with no nap and a little over-stimulation, not unexpected. I hear from my other parental-type friends that in a few years we'll be trying to drag him out of bed so we're trying to appreciate it while we work around it. He did have a ball at his party with all of his friends and we (maybe not him so much) were so grateful for all of the generous gifts and the love that surrounds our little love-bug.

In short, three years after that amazing day when we welcomed this perfect baby into our family, he's maybe even more perfect. The dimple in his cheek, those killer slate blue multi-faceted eyes, his blond hair with all of its cowlicks, his sweet loving nature, and his fascinating interesting entertaining self. Perfect.

 HAPPY 3RD BIRTHDAY, WONDERFUL BOY! WE LOVE YOU MORE THAN ANYTHING!

* You will note that I mentioned very little about his fascination with Cars. You should get that from the birthday photos. Is there ANYTHING that Disney Pixar doesn't make with a Cars theme?