Chad is 3!

Can you believe it's been three years since this little munchkin was born???

For Chad's 3rd birthday we planned a busy weekend of activities. First we went to the Carolina Zoo on Saturday.

The zoo has a train. Of course, this was our first stop. No need to try to get tickets or worry about monies. We took the train all the way from North America to Africa. 

The very first animals to check out: "Mingoes", as Chad calls them.

Watching the gorillas. We brought a little backpack in case there was a potty accident. Chad insisted on carrying it. I was sure he was going to get tired of that, but he wore it the entire day. Guess what he'll be getting from us for Christmas this year?

A lion to roar at

Chad told us later the elephants were his favorite

Can we all take a second to appreciate how pretty North Carolina is?

The giraffes and zebras were also favorites

After lunch (pizza and chocolate milk for Chad- it was a birthday, after all) he rode the carousel three times.

This was the dinos' last weekend at the zoo.

After I took this picture we had to make a rapid exit from the dino exhibit. The last dinosaur spit water and roared at Chad from behind, which caused some tears. But look at this thing. It had a wingspan of 33 feet, and it could fly. Crazy.

Sunday morning we got up bright and early for presents.

It's a Wally!

Thanks, Uncle Mike!

Go Sox!

A chimp scared him the day before, so he was checking out this card with some suspicion

Time for his present from Aunt Sue and Uncle John

Dinos! This book even talks about Steggy!

This book is really cute. The mouse is the hero! We've read it three times in less than 36 hours.

Don't judge me for this wrapping job. It was nearing 10:00 after a full day of zoo, and we ran out of birthday paper, so I grabbed a big chunk of Christmas paper, did the world's worst wrapping job and went to bed.

This is when the squealing started

His very own leaf blower, from Cool Aunt Steph!!

When he saw what was in this one, he started shouting "I want it! I want it! I want it!"

I kept trying to make him smile with the present, but he was too excited to look up for more than a nanosecond.

All aboard!

Time to blow some leaves.

It's hard to see all the bubbles, but they were everywhere. We used the entire bottle of bubble solution in about 30 minutes. Chad's stocking this year will contain nothing but bubble solution.

No more bubbles, so it was time to assemble the train, with some help by Fenway.

After a nap, we Skyped with Babci and let Chad see the present from Babci and PopPop

He requested a red and yellow cake. Nailed it!

More red and yellow inside. Can I deliver when it comes to cake requests, or what?

And finally, today we had cupcakes with his little friends at school!

Everyone was singing to him during this picture. And Chad was the only one who got to eat all his icing- they scraped most of it off the cupcakes for everyone else, since it was almost nap time and they didn't want crazy 2s.

Happy Birthday, Chad! We love you bunches and bunches!