Mark Turns 3!

One of the advantages of having Mark’s birthday on Dec. 28th is that most years, everyone in the family will have a day off to celebrate. Robert had the whole week off from work, and kids were on there Christmas vacation.

In the morning, of Mark’s THIRD birthday, this is what we found in the fridge. Another one of Robert’s masterpieces. This time featuring Ukrainian “Bubliki” as the wheels. If any of you in Ukraine is ever wondering what to send us, send us bubliki:)

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Here is another shot of the cake “in action”.

We had a fabulous quick birthday party for Mark. He invited his four friends to celebrate, and everyone had a great time. We played train games…and not train games, ate lunch and had cake.

If any of you are wondering why the kids are wearing “carrot hats”, I’ll explain. Yes, they could be train conductor hats, but I saw these carrot hats on Oriental Trading Company and decided that they would be perfect since Mark is also our Markovka (meaning carrot). Here, you have the story now.

The “not train” game that everyone loved! Katya was my helper.

We are glad that babushka (that is not her name by the way, she does have a real name, just to clarify:) was able to be part of this celebration. I think this is the first time she was with us at one of our kids’ birthdays.

We opened presents before cake. The beauty of giving gifts to a three year old is that he is happy with ANYTHING!

Now—cake time! Mark loved his train. Cream cheese frosting is the best!

We all know exactly what Mark is thinking, right?

Our birthday boy!

After our guests left, everyone decided to go sledding. We found a new favorite hill on the golf course next to our house, as I mentioned before. Everyone had a great time. Here is Mark fresh from the outside—rosy cheeks and everything.

For dinner, we decided to be adventurous and try a new place for yakisoba. Honestly, it was not our favorite—Cheese Roll is still the best. 

Mark playing with his new airplane that you can take apart and put back together with tools. Here he looks like he’s had a long day and is very tired of any pictures or attention.

Overall, the day turned out great. It was so good to spend it all together.

For journaling purposes, I must record that Mark is 39 inches and weighs about 38 lbs. He is a great talker and singer. One of his latest obsessions is Raffi’s song “Joshua Giraffe”. If you are not familiar with it, search for it in YouTube. It’s a 5 minute song and he knows it by heart. What’s funny is that when Alex was 4 years old, that’s exactly the song that he memorized and “performed” wherever he could.
Mark loves to play outside and play with his friends. His favorite toys are cars, trains and dinosaurs. He especially loves Magna Tiles and wooden blocks (that my cousin Katya gave as part of the game sort of like Jenga, but kids use them for building things). Mark still loves his green smoothies and eats bell peppers and “huge Japanese carrots” while watching TV. He stopped taking naps about three-four months ago, unfortunately…He still sleeps in the crib, since he doesn’t really climb out of it and new beds are hard to come by in Misawa. When we do transfer him to a big boy bed, he’ll probably just have a box spring and a mattress until we move. And the biggest achievement of all this last couple months is that Mark is completely potty trained. It seriously happened in one day, just because I was very diligent at taking him to the restroom (yes, most of the credit goes to me for this one). I never had to deliberately stay home to potty train or clean up numerous accidents. It was magic and I know I am very-very lucky. Thank you, Markovka:)
We love you!!!!