Our big 3-year-old

Silas is continuing to grow like a weed... he's 3' 2" tall, the same height that Matt was when he was 3.

Photo courtesy Paul Ries

Silas is just full of interesting thoughts and ideas. Whenever anything stops working he runs to find his toy screwdriver and tells me to get some new batteries. This apparently crosses over to things other than toys. The other day I told him he needed to get out of the shower because the hot water was all gone and he replied, "Maybe you need to put some batteries in it."

When we tell him he can't do something, he often asks, "When I grow bigger I can do that?" Apparently it works in reverse too. He says, "Mom, when you grow littler then can you climb behind the couch with me?"

Things that happened sometime in the past are generally referred to as happening "next-erday." He does, however, understand when we tell him things are happening tomorrow, or next week, and looks forward to them with great anticipation, like his birthday.

We celebrated his birthday by having family over for dinner, cake and ice cream. Silas requested a choo choo train cake this year, and luckily, my mother-in-law had given me a mold so it was much easier to construct than last year's cake.

Of course, this year, Silas was ready to get in on the action. He put all the M&M wheels on the train cars and filled them with candy.


He even tried to write his name, but wasn't quite strong enough to squeeze the frosting bag, so we had to do that together.


Of course, clean up was no problem:


Nor was eating it that evening....


He got some pretty cool presents, including a remote control Lightning McQueen from us...


A new tricycle from Grandma & Papa and Aunt Wendy, and light-up shoes from Grandma Kaye & Grandpa Dave:


We had to go for a ride that evening even though it was drizzling:


Uncle Andrew & Aunt Danae got him a warm dinosaur cover-up.


He wanted to wear it right away but we convinced him to save it for after playing with this fun water toy from Grandma & Grandpa Rausch:


There's more birthday fun to come - stay tuned!