Ernie's Third Birthday Book-Swap Bash!

After Lenora's Naming, we took advantage of having family in town to host Ernie's third birthday party! First the grandmas, Chris born March 2 and Bonnie born March 8, exchanged some gifts while the kids napped.

And birthday grandmas also got extra snuggle time with Lenora while Mom and Dad rushed around for party prep.

Cousin Maisie and Lenora got another chance to visit! They are keeping right up with each other, and are probably the most beautiful five-month old girls alive in the world today.

Though several of our guests had to decline due to last-minute sickness, we still had a nice group for the book swap!

Jonathan got one of our favorites: The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish by Neil Gaimon.
And Grandma Chris read Kitt's Curious George book to the group.

Ernie loved his cake, but most of all he loved having candles to blow out and people to sing to him!

And Aunt Laura and Uncle Tim's gift was a HUGE hit during and after the party. Ernie has been attached to his bug net and bug collection kit and binoculars ever since he opened them. For his actual birthday, he requested "The science museum with the bugs!" instead of the Children's Museum. Most of the after-party play sounded like this: "Would you like to go bugging wit me? Please, step into my museum [perennial garden] wit the director of ed-mology [entomology] and 'vestigate the bugs!"

The day went so fast, some of Ern's gifts from his grandparents weren't opened until his actual birthday on Tuesday. As you can see, he wanted to wear his new jammies from the Halls RIGHT AWAY, even if it meant over his moose pajama footies. And he's been playing with his new Duplo set from the Mohrs everyday. He loves that he can make tractors and construction machines with it!