Happy Birthday to our Little Man

Happy Birthday, Michael Paul. You are three! I am so proud of you and amazed at all you have learned and how you have grown over the last 7 months. You are an incredible little boy and I am so blessed that you are my son. I am looking forward to seeing how you grow and change over the next year. Love you, buddy!

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We all had a blast at Michael's birthday party. Michael was thrilled that it was finally his turn to have a party. We had decided a long time ago that we were going to do a farm theme for his party because he absolutely loves animals. We took the pictures for his invitation at the end of the summer because we wanted him to be standing in a corn field - another one of his favorite things. However, as we got closer to his birthday, Christmas started to take over and we realized that we were not as organized as we thought we were going to be when we made and mailed the invitations for his party. There ended up being nothing farm related at his party. Of course, no one really cared or probably noticed, but we thought it was funny.

We decided to do a pinata - or a peanutut as Michael calls it - for Michael's party. Since the party store didn't have any cow pinatas, I let Michael pick whichever one he wanted. He picked a donkey. This particular pinata had pull strings on it. Each kid takes a turn pulling one string until one of the kids picks the string that pulls open the pinata. The birthday boy went first. Before we could stop him, he had pulled all but 4 strings. Whoops. Then 4 of the other kids at the party got a turn to pull a string. It came down to the last one and Michael's cousin, Elizabeth, was selected
to pull it. She pulled with all her might, but all that came down was the string. The pinata didn't open. Matt ended up pulling it apart and the candy and toys came crashing down on the heads of the kids eagerly awaiting to stuff their goodie bags.We are so grateful to everyone who came to celebrate Michael's birthday and for all the gifts and cards that were given to him. He was in heaven looking at and playing with all his new toys. Little did he know, just a week later would be Christmas and he would get even more gifts!On Michael's actual birthday - Tuesday, Dec 21, we had our own little celebration at home. Michael got to pick what he wanted to eat for each meal. Eggs for breakfast, oatmeal for lunch, and homemade pot pie for dinner. I had it in my mind that I wanted to put candles in each meal. I wasn't thinking when I put the candles in the pot pie right after it came out of the oven. Then walked away for 10 minutes while we got the kids ready to eat. Whoops - there was melted wax in the pot pie.That night Michael got the special treat of sleeping in our bed. This was probably his favorite part of all the birthday celebrations. He's always wanted to sleep in our bed and we always tell him no. We decided that once a year each kid could sleep with us in our bed and that would be on their birthday. Michael slept very well - Matt and I - not so much. But the lack of sleep was completely worth it because Michael felt so special and so loved that night.