Happy 3rd birthday Tan!

Back in December, Tan celebrated his 3rd birthday!  He looked forward to it for a while, which was fun because he was finally to the age when he anticipated the actual birthday and wanted to celebrate.  Here he is testing out holding up three fingers, instead of 2.  

We actually celebrated a week early because his real birthday was on my sister's wedding day.  But he didn't know!  In the morning, we went to our ward Christmas party.  When we got home, he opened presents from Eli & I and his grandparents.    

 After that, his friends came over for a firefighter birthday party!  First, they colored pictures of firefighters, firetrucks, etc.  Then we played "put out the fire!"  Two kids started in the corner of the house.  When they heard the bell ring (it was a loud bell that I was given when I finished teaching at Spring Lake Elementary), they had to put on fireman boots (snowboots), a fireman jacket (eli's jackets), and a fireman hat.  Then one child sat inside one of a "firetruck" (one of those red coupe cars.  I call them flinstone cars because you have to walk with your feet to make it move!), and the other pushed from the back and made siren sounds.  (There was also a red flashing light that we taped onto the truck that the kids liked.)  They made their way to the house, got out of the truck, opened the door, and had to crawl through a tunnel (made by covering the space between the couch and the counter/wall) because of the "smoke" inside the house.  When they got to the bathroom, they looked for the child and animal inside (the child chose a stuffed animal to take inside the house with them and the child cried out "help!" until the firefighters got there).  They found them and then grabbed a squirt bottle and sprayed the fire to put it out (an orange plastic tablecloth taped inside of the shower).  Then they crawled back out of the house with the person they had saved, got back into the firetruck, and drove back to the firestation.  It was really fun for the kids!  I wish we had pictures or videos of it, but Eli and I were both busy running the activity and weren't able to get any.

After the game, we had snacks and cupcakes.  For snacks, we served red, yellow, and white food:  chips and salsa, red and yellow peppers, red grapes, milk.

 















Then we all jumped in our cars and headed a couple miles away to the St. Michael's Firestation for a tour of the station and the trucks.  The kids LOVED this!  Tanner was pretty timid the whole time, but I know he had a good time because he talked about it for a long time afterwards.  They had free roaming privileges in both firetrucks, which they all took full advantage of!  The firefighters even turned on the flashing lights for the whole time, but not the siren, which was probably a good thing because it would have been really loud in the garage.

I love how all of those kids fit on the back of one truck!!!  So cute!!

  Both kids were out by 6:30!  And then I crashed soon after.  It was such a fun day!