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Carl's Third Birthday

We actually didn't celebrate Carl's birthday on August 20th, seeing as how he had already had 2 parties, one with each set of grandparents.  We did normal things like unpacked from our trip and played outside with friends.  I gave Carl a few presents: a costume hat with tiger ears on it as well as a set of lacing cards for him to use in church meetings.  But we did plenty of celebrating before his birthday:

1. My parents had a party on August 12th in West Virginia.  My dad blew up balloons with his nose, just like in the good old days and the kids had a great time chasing them around.

2. My mom made three cakes, one for Carl, one for me, and one for Pat.  We all have summer birthdays and birthdays are a big deal to the Bergs.  Carl's cake was funfetti with green frosting, fruit snacks for decoration, and three tall candles.  Sniff, sniff, because he is three years old!

3. There were lots of presents, mostly clothes all around.  Of note was an especially ugly baseball cap with dog ears that I swore the boys would never wear.  The words were no sooner out of my mouth than Carl squealed with delight and plopped the atrocity onto his head!  Carl also got some really neat Kapla blocks from his grandparents.  They are precision cut blocks that can be stacked amazingly high.

4. Audrey had a party for Carl on August 17th in Illinois.  She made an amazing raspberry jello cake.  I was doubtful that it would be all that good since it was so easy but--WOW--it was good.

5.  Scott carved some decorative candles into shapes suitable for cake candles so that Carl could have three to blow out again.  He did really well on his second try.

6. Audrey bought Carl a DVD of Phineas and Ferb, a TV show they had been enjoying while staying at her house.  He was pretty excited when he unwrapped it!

7.  The boys played outside with Maddy in the sprinkler. Not actually in the sprinkler, since they don't like getting wet, but around it.  There were water guns as well, which ended up getting them more wet than the sprinkler.  And then there were popsicles as well.

All in all, I felt that all that celebrating was sufficient.  So, on August 17th, I told Carl that he could consider himself three years old and he did.  For months, he has been telling friends and neighbors, "I will be three in August" so now he loves to be able to say, "I'm three!"  So grown up.
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