Happy Birthday Jamisen

Happy 3 Year Old Birthday Jamisen! It's hard to believe that you're really 3 years old but it's happened.

 Your birthday was tractor themed because right now, between trains and tractors are your entire life. You are obsessed with anything that has wheels. On the morning of your birthday, you were surprised with a brand new John Deere Tractor shirt and tractor decals decorating your wall.

You were very excited about them and shared the overnight miracle with your Grandpa Faiola and Daddy first thing. The tractor cut-out pretty much blew your mind. You were a little less excited to share the tractor cut out when kids arrived. We're still working on this whole sharing thing.

Lily was dressed up in her birthday finest for you. She has started pulling herself up on things and crawls with wild abandon. She isn't sure if she likes you all the time because you're not as gentle as you can be with her. One of your most common questions to me right now is, "Mommy, why is she crawling towards you??" as she flees in terror of your not so gentle hugs, pinches and love taps. 

Why yes, Lily was in another outfit to start your special day. But, when she was introduced to cake for the first time, things got a little messy.

It was so cute that we didn't mind sacrificing a shirt for the cause.

The gift giving was generous, fast and furious. Unlike last year when you weren't quite sure what to do with the gifts and wrapping paper, this year, you really knew what to do. If we had given you the scissors, you would have been even more delighted.

Your favorite gift varies based on the minute but the enduring favorite gift that you drag everywhere is your cleaning set, complete with a mop, a broom and a vacuum. You love to wash the windows. The adults don't love it as much. You are very protective of your cleaning kit and scream if Lily tries to touch it. The arrival of the cleaning kit has pushed all of your other toys to less importance in value so now you let Lily play with your prized toys, like your kitchen, much more easily. This is a positive for us all.

Sharing with others easily hasn't quite happened. You were quite sad that you had to share this lawn mower with other people, holding onto the handle, and SCREAMING if we tried to pry your hands off it. I should clarify that you were sort of okay sharing it with Ava ... but not any of the guys. We did force you to share, of course. 

This was another hit for a gift. Your Daddy found it for you and you love getting pushed around in it. Your parents backs? Not so much. 

Even with the sore backs, we love you more than we can possibly express. Which is why we made the choice to let you have a cake that turned your poop blue. But more about that on the next blog post. Your birthday weekend extravaganza has so many photos that just one blog post won't cover it all. To be continued ...