Riley's 3rd Birthday

This was Riley's day. From the moment he woke he got to make 'most' of the decisions. Starting with breakfast, for which he chose Macaroni & Cheese. Yum. (PaPa & Grandma put his name and picture on the news, they wished him Happy Birthday, he thought it was totally cool and kept repeating his name and age!)

Next he was allowed to choose his outfit for the day. Fortunately for me, he did a great job and looked perfect!

Our first stop of the day was by Target, where we had to exchange a toy he had gotten at his party that was broken. While we were walking through the store though, he saw that 'Bee Movie' was out on DVD and decided to spend some of his birthday money on it. (to date he has probably watched this 10 times already!)

We then picked up Nana and went to Chic-Fil-A (Riley's choice) for lunch. He played on their indoor play land for a VERY long time and loved every minute of it. After lunch we were off to our MAIN stop of the day...Toys R Us!

For those who haven't been, TRU gives the birthday kids a birthday crown to wear and a birthday balloon to carry as they shop for their birthday toys on their birthday. Whew. LOL. We were there to spend some birthday money. We didn't make it very far around the store when Riley found the Thomas train tables and sets. He wanted one SO much. I tried my hardest to persuade him to shop around, to check out all the toys the TRU had to offer, before making his final decision. Every other toy he would seem interested, as we made our way around the store, we would ask him, "Is this what you want to spend your birthday money on?" and his response, every time, was, "Nooo! I want Thomas!" And by 'Thomas' he didn't just mean a little train figurine, he wanted a full on, radio controlled track set. Ugh. All I could think was, "Where am I going to put this? He already has a train track AND a new car racing track!" But, it was his birthday, what was I supposed to do?! We went home with the Tidmore Shed track set.

After shopping it was time to head to Riley's dinner destination of choice...IHOP!!! His FAVORITE restaurant. Usually he gets the 'Create a Face' pancake, but they had special 'Who Cakes', and he couldn't take his eyes off them! There was no question that it was the perfect choice for his birthday. Nana had somewhere to go that evening, but Daddy, Uncle Justin, Aunt Cutie and Xander met us for dinner. It's always so nice to be reminded of how much Riley means to so many people. We are so blessed by our friends and family.

Right next door to IHOP is Bennigan's, and as luck would have it, they were serving their green beer for St. Patty's Day. So with Riley's permission, of course, we hopped on over there and had a couple before heading home for the night.

When we got home Riley still had some presents from Mommy and Daddy to open! It sure was a BUSY DAY!

I THINK (as it has been a couple of weeks now) that the only things on our to-do list that we didn't accomplish the day of his actual birthday were the library and Blockbuster. If I remember correctly, we made it to both places over the next couple of days, Riley just played at the library, didn't find any books he wanted to bring home during that trip, but he did rent a 'Veggie Tales' movie at Blockbuster. All in all I think Riley had an extremely successful and FUN birthday.