Happy 3rd Birthday, Riley!!

Riley may only be celebrating her 3rd birthday, but she has already established herself as an expert guest-of-honor.  She really knows how to celebrate and is quite astute of the "rules" associated with birthdays.  She LOVES presents and can rip open even the most challenging packages.  Most of all, she loves being the center of attention!


Riley's day started out with Mommy and Lukie trying to sing "Happy Birthday" to her.  For the last 3 days she's been talking about her upcoming birthday.  Now that it had arrived, she was in denial and insisted that Luke and I stop singing to her because it wasn't her birthday yet.  After a shower, Nanna called to sing "Happy Birthday".  Riley sat and listened with a huge grin on her face!  Then Grandma and Grandpa called to serenade Riley.  We left home and stopped at Target to pick up celebratory suckers for Riley's classmates at Little Lakers. While on our way to school she received another Happy Birthday song from our friend Dane.  After lunch, Riley began asking "Is it my birthday now?  Me open presents now?".  Luckily for us (the ones who were guarding the presents), it was soon Riley's rest time.  She reluctantly fell asleep while Mom baked a cake and Luke wrapped the presents he had carefully selected for Riley at Target.  (He was so proud of using his own money to buy her 3 gifts- a new shower scrubbie, an Elmo book and sunglasses).  Grandma and Grandpa arrived at 4 to take Luke and Riley to Dairy Queen for their birthday treats, a tradition in our family.  They arrived back home with ice cream on their faces and balloons from the dollar store.  At this point, Riley was in full party mode and was determined to open her presents NOW.  Dad had to hide the gifts to keep her from tearing into the presents before supper.  After eating, we sang the "official" Happy Birthday song.  Riley beamed.  She blew out the candles on her cake and waited patiently for us to bring the presents out from their hiding place.  She opened each gift with wild enthusiasm!  We ended the celebration by eating cake and playing with new toys. Our nightly rock-a-bye was significantly more crowded tonight. 2 new bears and 4 new books joined us on the chair.  Our bedtime ritual lasted longer than usual... guess neither of us were eager for Riley's first day as a 3-year-old to end.  :)