Happy 3rd Birthday Austin!

It's hard to believe that Austin is now 3 years old! I don't know where the time has gone, but somehow, my little boy has turned 3.

On Sunday, we had a party for him -- inviting 5 of his friends, their parents and siblings. In total, we were 10 adults and 9 kids for lunch and cake.

The kids spent the about three hours running around the basement, stopping only long enough to eat.

Since Austin is big into Mickey Mouse right now (it's his favourite TV show), I made him a Mickey Mouse cake for the party. It took me the better part of Saturday to decorate, since it's the first time I've ever decorated a cake, but it was fun to do -- and Austin loved it, which was the most important part.

Here are some pictures from the party, enjoy. More pictures are in the slideshow in the right-hand sidebar.

Blowing out the candles

Patiently waiting for daddy to cut the cake

Present time!

Austin and his friends Lilo (under the table), Aaliyah, Alejandro and Izzy.

Alexandra enjoying her very first piece of cake. The advantage to being the second child means she gets cake before Austin did...Austin didn't get cake until his first birthday.

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Family Day fun

For the most part, we spent the long weekend at home just getting stuff done around the house. But on Monday we decided to go off and do something as a family.

So we went to the zoo. Actually, we had planned to go to the Science Centre (because they have a really cool kids zone) but when we got there, the lineup to get into the parking lot was all the way down the street. So, we made a u-turn and headed for the zoo.

Well it crowded there too -- so crowded that we had to wait 20 minutes just to park in the overflow parking lot. But since we're members, the crowds didn't bother us too much -- because you don't feel like you have to get your money's worth by seeing as much as you can.

It was a beautiful day, about -1C and sunny, and we wandered through some of the indoor pavillions where we saw the gorillas, pygmy hippos, orangatans and more. We also stopped to see the elephants, which were putting on quite a show for a bit -- flapping their ears and trumpeting, and the tigers, where one was pacing back and forth while growling. We packed a lunch, but when it came time to eat, the only tables we could find were outside. So we figured, why not. It took a little bit to convince Austin that he wouldn't get cold while eating but after that we had a fun little picnic on Feb. 16. Not something you get to do too often!

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Playing in the snow

We've had a ton of snow here this year. Not quite as much as last year, I don't think, but still a lot of snow -- at least in my opinion of Toronto snow.

If nothing else, there's a lot of snow for Alex's first winter compared to for Austin's first winter in 2007 (I'm not counting the fact that he was born in the winter).

Here's Austin on Jan. 26, 2007. Notice in this picture, that there's barely enough snow to cover the grass.And here's Austin and Alex, sitting in almost the same spot on the front lawn, on Jan. 28, 2009:

Austin loves going out and playing in the snow -- his latest game is to climb up the mountain he's sitting on in the picture and then creating a slide onto the driveway. And of course, he insists that Alex slides down too!

We try to get out and do nothing but play in the snow once or twice a week, but it's hard because we've had quite a few very cold days. And even when it's not too cold to play, we don't get out often because Alex gets bored being unable to move much in a snowsuit and Austin doesn't like playing outside by himself for very long. But we still manage -- often when Alex is sleeping in the mornings.

Hope everyone's staying warm.

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