The Rush Family: Happy Birthday Ryan

The other day I called Ryan "my baby",
and he loudly told me that he wasn't a baby anymore, he was a boy!
That statement sums up how I feel about his 3rd birthday....
my baby is gone and has been replaced by an adorable, loving, sweet,
silly, smart, independent, headstrong, very demanding, somewhat defiant,
challenging and very strong willed little boy....
who I wouldn't trade for anything in the world!

A couple months ago, we started asking Ryan what kind of birthday party
he wanted to have? Being that he is independent and knows what he wants
these days, we thought we should give him some say in the matter.
He easily decided to have his party at the Gym where he takes tumbling classes
(one of his favorite things to do!)
The theme of the party...basically the type of cake he wanted, was another
matter. First he wanted Thomas the Tank, then a firetruck,
then a race car, then a monkey, and then he wanted a....
volcano cake! Yes, you read that right....a volcano cake!
My first thought was "no big deal, he'll change his mind again in a few days."
Well, he didn't change his mind and stayed committed to a volcano cake
for weeks, so when it came time to place the order, a volcano cake is
what we requested. Thank goodness for Monica and her amazing talents
because she and Ryan must have been on the same wave length
because it was just what he wanted and he was thrilled to no end!

The cake arrived while Ryan was taking his nap

And this was Ryan's reaction when he first saw it
(notice he still looks half asleep....and don't you just love the mix-matched pajamas!)
He wakes up very slowly and is sometime quite a bear for a little bit
and he was so overwhelmed by the cake that after taking it all in
he started yelling that he didn't want it and to take it back
and then went in the living room and through himself on the couch!
My first thought was "Oh No, what do we do now", but knowing Ryan
I knew it would just take a little while for him to process it all
and, sure enough, within 5 minutes he came back into the kitchen
and wanted to check out every detail of his cake,
and thankfully it got his total seal of approval....whew!

The next challenge was transporting the cake to the gym
where we were having his party.
Michael drove very carefully and it arrived just fine,
but Ryan still insisted on staring at it after we got it there
to make sure it was fine.
At one point when he was running around playing in the gym
he came up to me and told me he had to go check on his cake
and he ran all the way up to the party room to make sure it was still all OK.

Ryan greeting his friend Abby

And making sure she felt right at home

Isn't he the perfect little gentleman!

Greeting another friend, Kashe

Running full speed to jump into the foam pit

In the pit with Bryce

Cousin Hunter

Bryce and Noah

Look, its a bird, its a plane...oh no, its Michael doing a double flip!!!

Don't get any crazy ideas Randi!

Cousin Kylie

The three amigos

Playing parachute games

Chowing down on pizza

Finally it's time for "the cake!"
Before we lit the candles, I had to fill it up with dry ice and marshmallow lava
Ryan loved that part!

Then Michael added warm water and lit the candles

Notice where Ryan is now

And where he is now!

When the cake erupted, he jumped out of his chair, straight into my arms!
It took a little convincing to get him back into his chair
and you can see by his face that he was still very worried

We've been reading and learning a lot about volcanos lately,
so Ryan knows how dangerous volcanos can be and
was probably worried that lava was going to fill up the whole room!