Happy Birthday Sam!! Yesterday, we celebrated his 3rd birthday. We had a party with balloons, a kiddie pool, a bubble machine, and ice cream cake*! Normally, people are pretty busy with summer weekend plans in the PNW, so I figured we’d have low attendance, but it turns out that people with young children maybe don’t go anywhere? We had higher attendance than I expected! Sam seemed a bit overwhelmed, and he actually went upstairs by himself a few times to take a break. Afterwards, though, he said “I had fun sharing my toys.”

It has been fun, over the last few months, to see how the kids around 2.5-3 years old finally play together. Yesterday, they even tried to play hide and seek (with their eyes open the whole time)

Let’s take a moment to celebrate Sam and the little human he is becoming. Here are some things Sam has been up to lately:

• Cutting down “trees” aka the foam roller with his toy chainsaw. This involves getting up on a big step ladder, just like how daddy gets up on the ladder to cut down trees.
• Truck trucks trucks trucks (especially excavators and fire trucks). This has been a theme his whole life.
• “Working” around the house. Sam loves all the construction people in his life — Guy, the contractor who did our kitchen remodel, and TK, the handyman at daycare, and daddy, too, who is working on an extensive bathroom remodel right now. He loves to go around the house with his toolbox and work on things, just like daddy, Guy, and TK.
• A nighttime routine that gets more elaborate every night. It reminds me of “if you give a mouse a cookie.” First, we read some stories. Then, he wants a cookie and milk. Then, he wants to play for awhile. Then, he wants more stories. Then, he wants to brush his teeth all by himself. Then, we turn out the lights by going around the house with his “horse with the itchy hat” (it’s actually a unicorn) and turning off each light. Recently, this has extended to the downstairs lights, too. Then, he wants more milk. Finally, he finishes his milk and lays down. But often times, he hits his head on the side of the bed. Then he demands ice. And sometimes a bandaid. And more milk. And sometimes also demands that daddy lay down next to him (mom is not allowed). Then finally, maybe, he will go to sleep! Also, I know! He probably shouldn’t be drinking so much milk. It’s called picking your battles.
• Doing activities in a very particular way. One time, I tried to put a toy sheep in his toolbox (to clean up, not as some terrible prank), and as soon as he woke up from his nap, he noticed, took it out, and said “This is not a tool!” He gets VERY frustrated if something doesn’t go the way he intended. I’ve also heard him boss around some other kids at daycare, showing them the right way to use the imaginary firehose (he definitely gets this from Erin!)
• Chasing Ovie and pretending to be a dog. Sam loves Ovie, and Ovie loves him back. It’s really precious. Sorry Patches.
• Saying “Jesus!” while he struggles with whatever task he is doing. (I try not to laugh, but it’s so hard)
• Paying attention to where we are driving! If we drive towards daycare on a Saturday, Sam will say things like “daycare is closed today!” If we need to go to the grocery store after I pick him up from daycare, he will immediately start crying if I don’t make the first turn to go towards our house. He seems to always know where we are driving.
• Fried rice! He even calls himself “fried rice boy.”
• Running around the classroom at school with his friend Ryker. They seem to have made up their own language, and I often catch them in the corner pretending to eat pizza. (This is interesting because I’ve literally never seen Sam eat pizza in real life)
• Batting his eyes at my guitar teacher.
• Hates loud noises.
• Never snuggles.

So it turns out that Sam is particular and always on the move, with a tendency to fixate, but also a good sense of humor, a big heart, and a great laugh. He really has been a joy to be around lately. People always say “wow, it goes by so fast”… but it’s felt like 3 years to us! I’m excited for the upcoming year, to continue to see how Sam emerges as a person. I much prefer this phase over the baby phase. It’s a little daunting to think about doing this all over again with two more babies, but I think it will be different this time around.

*ice cream cake

People kept asking me how I made ice cream cake. It’s not that hard, but it does take a few days since you need time for things to freeze.

How to make an ice cream cake for a toddler:

1. Plan to make two! You will want leftovers, especially if you are a pregnant mama.
2. Buy 2 pints of ice cream (I went with mint chocolate chip and vanilla chocolate chip), the big sized tub of Cool Whip, a large container of hot fudge, a package Oreos (I actually used Glutinos), and 2 packages of chocolate cake mix. I went with the Betty Crocker gluten free chocolate devil’s food cake mix because I figured I had enough things to take care of. If I were more ambitious, I might just make the cakes from scratch. In that case, any chocolate cake recipe would be fine.
3. When you get home from the grocery store, the ice cream may be partially thawed, so this is a good time to put the ice cream into its shape. Let it sit out until it’s soft and easier to work with. Line two baking pans (can be the same ones you’ll use for the cake) with parchment paper. Put the ice cream in the pan, and mash it down so it molds into the pan. Freeze them.
4. The next day, take the ice cream out of the pans (this is easy with the parchment paper) and leave it in the freezer. Take the pans with you so you can bake the cakes.
5. Bake the cakes. Now, this is the hardest decision you will make. I opted to split one cake mix across 2×9″ pans, which resulted in pretty thin cake. I wish I had made the two cake mixes I had purchased, which would have resulted in a higher cake:ice cream ratio. It really depends on what your cake:ice cream ratio preference is, but if you split one cake mix across two pans, know that it will be a low cake:ice cream ratio.
6. Let the cakes cool completely.
7. Grind up the whole package of Oreos (I used a food processor). Save a little bit of the ground up Oreo for the cake topping. Mix the rest of it with a whole container of hot fudge.
8. Spread the Oreo/hot fudge mixture on top of the cake. Don’t take the ice cream out until after you do this! I under estimated how long this would take (relative to how quickly the ice cream would melt) so I took the ice cream out before spreading this on the cake, and my ice cream melted too much. I had to put the ice cream back in the freezer and wait until the next day to finish the cake.
9. After you’ve spread the Oreo/hot fudge mixture on the cake, bring out the parchment paper ice cream paddies. Flip them over to put them on top of the Oreo/hot fudge layer. Peel off the parchment paper.
10. Yay! Now you almost have a cake, and you just have to frost it. I opted to use CoolWhip because this is America, but you could use something more sophisticated like butter cream or some homemade whipped topping.
11. Once it’s frosted, decorate it. Pro tip for easy toddler cake decoration: put the remaining ground up Oreo into a pile on top of the cake, and place a backhoe on top. Sam loved it.

Ta-Da!