The Birthday Party--Mark's 3rd

New motorcycle, hat, and tool belt...from the parents.

Our Little Guy

So you heard how we spent our Friday of Mark's birthday weekend, Dad took off work, we headed to the Turtle Back Zoo, and then Big Ed's BBQ for dinner, but here is how we spent Saturday and Sunday:

Saturday was our prep day.  We were having about 20 people over for the big birthday celebration on Sunday so we had lots of back yard prep to do.

Last weekend John bought a new round table and set of 6 chairs for our patio.  It's awesome.

 But I hadn't done any planting for all our pots in our backyard, so we headed to our favorite local farm and stocked up on soil, miracle grow, flowers, and all of our herbs and veggies to plant in our garden.  Of course we picked the hottest day to do our outdoor prep work, but we spent a good 4 hours outside potting plants, digging up weeds, and making our back yard and garden beautiful for our company.  During this time the kids ate ice pops, watched us, rode their bikes, or played in their rooms...they were SO good.  After nap time and showers we decided we didn't want to cook or dirty the kitchen so we heading to West Lake (A Chinese restaurant with authentic chinese food on Rt 34) and treated the kids to a fancy dinner.  Oh, Marky boy do you see how much we love you?  We also stopped by another restaurant to order some sushi for tomorrow's appetizers.  

 Saturday night after dinner we all rested up for the big party.  After church on Sunday John went to pick up the sheet cake and food items, while the kids napped and I got things ready inside.  When Mark woke up he opened up our gifts to him.  Doesn't he look great?  He wore his tool belt all day and kept fixing things around the house.  When I tied it on him he goes, "Mom, it's like an apron!"  I was so proud of him!  His vocabulary is amazing.

On Pinterest I got an idea to open up presents throughout the birthday party at the exact time that he was born.  Since Mark was born on May 27, 2009 at 10:03 p.m.  every time it was 3:03, 4:03, 5:03, or 6:03 he opened up a set of gifts.  He loved this idea!  Also, it gave us all a chance to see what he got and he wasn't overwhelmed with 10 gifts at a time.  He was able to open up each gift and try it out.  We saved the best gift from Grandma Judy for last because it was his scooter that he's been asking for (we bought Julia one the day before so they could enjoy riding their new scooters together).

3 generations of McInerney men

 We kept the party small, so we could enjoy everyone, it wasn't a friend party, we will do a friend party for his 5th birthday.  We invited the Grandparents, the Aunts and Uncle Kelsey, Aunt Vivi and Uncle Adrian, and the godparents (the DiMares came but the Weavers couldn't come...it was our first Memorial Day weekend without them).  We also invited the Coyles.  Lisa and Jim have blessed us so much this year with their friendship and love and Hannah has become our babysitter recently, and she dotes on Mark as if he were her own son, they are so cute together.

Happy Birthday to you!!!

I think he loves me.

 It was an absolute perfect birthday, right down to the last detail, the food, the great gifts, the friends and family and the fun...thank you God for allowing us the chance to celebrate our son and his third birthday.  We are so lucky to have such a great boy.  What a gift he is to us.


****I have so many pictures from the party I am going to attempt to do my first Smilebox presentation and show it later this week!

Happy Birthday Bud!  Love Team Mac

How'd you get so big?