The Birthday Boy!

Today was Joey's 3rd birthday (actually, it was just about 3 years and 11 minutes ago that I gave birth to him). Mine and Earl's lives changed (and everyone's lives that are connected to ours) on July 29th at 10:25pm. What a blessing he's been to everyone that loves him!

We spent his birthday at the Norfolk Zoo.

At the entrance to the zoo they have a water feature, with a 20,000 lb. globe that floats on water, and geisers that shoot up from the pavement. This was Joey's favorite part. As much as he loves animals, they didn't not compare to the water fun.

It was so extremely hot that me and mom actually wanted to step in the water too. But we refrained.

I'm sure you can guess how exhausted the boy was on the way home.

He already had 2 birthday parties, so today we just did a little family time with one present: a crab sandbox.

Instead of birthday cake, we tried a new thing: Whoopie Pies. Found the recipe in a parenting magazine somewhere. Mine weren't as pretty as the picture in the magazine, but hopefully they tasted as good! They're basically just cake sandwiches, with icing on the inside. My first batch was a total disaster. The cakes were crumbly and thin and not even circular. Mom was trying to make me feel better saying that Joey would still love 'em. I said, no way, he won't, he saw the picture of how they're supposed to look. She argued that he'd still find them neat. I disagreed. She took the plate to Joey and said, "Look, don't these that your mom is making you look neat?" Joey whined, "uhhhh, those are not whoopie pies!" We laughed. He most certainly did not find them neat or cool at first. Luckily, my mom is a wiz and helped me fix the recipe to work better.

When Earl asked Joey what he wished for, Joey said for more candles.