Merry Christmas!

What a celebration! He came to earth, in the most humble fashion, to walk among his creation and save his people. Sometimes it completely overwhelms me. I hope you can reflect today and be completely overwhelmed by your Father God's love for you!

 

Abe's celebration(s)

We had a small family party for Abe at my parent's house on the Friday after Thanksgiving. In his only 3 birthdays so far, it's the second time I've pulled this stunt. It just makes it easy and he's little so he doesn't really care. We had pizza with the family and some cookie cake (with a fire truck, of course!!).

 

 

Enjoying a bit of attention.

 He opened a few presents from cousins, aunts and uncles and we called it a party.

After the birthday fun, Abe went back to climbing all over Uncle Loren. Loren was a good sport. Abe climbed on him for at least two days.

Now on his actual birthday, which fell on the following Wednesday, we met up with some friends at a nearby fire station. This was what Abe really wanted more than anything. A trip to a firestation to see the fire trucks and fire fighters. He is completely obsessed. So here is his actual 3rd birthday in pictures.

 He started off his morning with a gift from his big brothers and a bowl of hot oatmeal on top of frozen cherries. This is one of his favorites!

 And off to the fire station we go. So thankful for this group of friends that were able to celebrate our boy with us on a plain old Wednesday morning. 

On the truck - dreams really do come true. :) I might as well mention that he threw a minor fit when it was time to leave. He was somehow under the impression that he would actually go for a RIDE on the fire truck. When he realized that was not going to happen he chunked the water bottle the fireman had given out to the kids in our group. Oh 3 year olds. Throwing things....who teaches them these things?

He loved the whole experience. All of the kids got a turn to do it all.

 Our crew! I love these kiddos!

Next we headed to the park for some playtime, lunch and cupcakes. He had to slide down the fireman pole again and again.

 Nana and Papa J made an appearance later that afternoon after naps. We had pizza (again) and he got to open his gifts.

We ended the evening with icecream since Abe is not a huge fan of cake or cookies. It was the perfect day and celebration for our fire truck lovin' boy.

Abe @ age 3

I need to catch up on Abe and his 3rd birthday celebration. But for now I am going to document who this sweet boy is at the age of 3, so that hopefully years from now I can remember it even better as I reflect back. I just put him to bed tonight so bedtime routine is fresh on my mind. Sometimes Jeremy puts him to bed and sometimes I do. When Jeremy puts him to bed, he is flown as an airplane and he crash lands into his crib. (Yep, still in his crib and I have no intentions to move him out in the near future.) He normally asks for me to put him to bed. We have had a pretty sweet nighttime routine for a couple of years now. I sing you are my sunshine to him (twice. Because after I sing it once, he ALWAYS says "two sunshines") and he always sings it with me. And even though this little charade has gone on umpteen times or so it still melts me to hear his sweet little voice sing along. So he gets this brief cuddle time before nap and before bedtime. I love it. He naps in the afternoon for about 2 to 2.5 hours. Then he gets between 11-12 hours at night. They say that children do most of their growing during their sleep time. And he is growing for sure! People have been assuming he was 3 since this past summer. He is currently about 36 1/2lbs(86%) and 39inchces tall (78%).

He has a very sweet disposition about him. He loves to cuddle, be held or sit in a lap. He is very affectionate and easily speaks his heart. It's not uncommon for my eyes to meet his and for him to very seriously and sweetly say "I love you, mommy." Goodness, he makes me feel special and loved. I didn't even know a three year old could do that. He listens well to correction. And is normally quick to correct an off behavior. He has a silly side and loves to make his family and others laugh.

He adores both of his big brothers and typically wants to do what they are doing. He especially loves to jump on the trampoline with them, play with trains with them and do puzzles and Legos with them. The key words here are "with them". He typically wants to play with them and does not play by himself as easily. I will admit that Abe struggles with sharing toys with his brothers. He can be a bit possessive of things. Like the rest of our crew, he loves loves loves books. He loves to be read to. But I also often catch him sitting on the floor flipping through pages of books. He loves it when I get out the paints so he can paint. He would paint every day if I had the energy and time. He also really enjoys playing outside. And eh...he also loves TV, our tablet and cell phones if he can sneak one. Not my favorite of his favorites, but these are definitely part of his life on a regular basis.

Abe has a huge fascination with fire fighters and firetrucks. This has been going on for some time. In fact, today he told me all on his own that he was going to be a fire fighter when he grows up. So I'm very hopeful that he and Pax will work together at the same fire station. :) He also loves construction vehicles, ambulances, police cars, monster trucks and trains. The puppy fascination that he had at this time last year has moved on and now it's fire trucks.

After being around some babies recently, Abe often tells us that he wants a baby. I just encourage him to ask God to bring us one. :) And then there are other times when he tells me that he is still my baby. Sometimes he wants to be a big boy and do it all himself. And sometimes he is perfectly content to take advantage of his rightful place in the family as the baby. It just depends on the moment and his mood.

Abe is a great eater. He didn't love the spaghetti I made last night. But on most days he'll out eat all of us if I put some cooked cauliflower and broccoli in front of him. He loves most veggies. all fruit, yogurt, cheese, chicken, bacon, sausage, rice, beans, oatmeal, granola, crunchy tacos...so I wouldn't ever call him a picky eater. And I've had a picky eater at my table for many a years now, so I'm grateful Abe is still easy when it comes to food.

Abe is such a special part of our family. I regularly tell him that I'm so glad that God gave him to us. He's our baby. The big boys still call him our baby. And they love him like crazy. God gave us another sweet and perfect gift when Abe came along. It's a joy to love and raise this boy.

 

 

Zoo Day.

Jeremy has every other Friday off. I'm so thankful for regular 3 day weekends as a family. It's a really nice perk to his job. So I try to leave his Friday off pretty open as far as school day. I'll mark most Fridays as a catch up day. And often on the Fridays that Jeremy is home, we do something fun. Back in early November we went to a little zoo. It was not our huge local zoo. It was a small one, that was a little more of a drive that doesn't cost near as much for a family of 5. We were able to make the loop at the zoo in a little over an hour. It was the perfect amount of zoo for me and the boys. They are like their momma and can only take so much of the zoo. :) Here are some pictures from our morning.

 At least one child knows what to do for the camera. And I swear he's been this photogenic since he was 6 months old. Now if he could teach the other two....

 The boys got to feed this beautiful giraffe. That was a highlight.

 And the baby goats.

 

 

 Most of the time little brother has to do what the big bros are doing.

 We've been studying flying creatures in science his year, so this was a perfect photo op.

 I may have talked Holden into wearing that particular shirt on our zoo day. :)

 And little Abe.

Another zoo trip behind us. That should hold us over for another year or so.

Halloween 2015

I'm still playing catch up over here. So I'll be doing a condensed version of our fall season. So here we are at Halloween. For the first year ever we didn't make it to a pumpkin patch this year. We had so much rain and it often fell on our weekends. Then after the rain, I knew the patches would be a terrible mudfest. So we skipped it this year. Oh well. Hopefully next year.

 The boys in their Halloween tees.

 A little crafting on the morning of Halloween. Marshmallow ghosts.

And coloring by number.

Halloween night we took these characters trick-or-treating.

Everyone chose their own costume this year. Pax has been saying for nearly two years that he wants to be a firefighter when he grows up. So his decision was fitting. Abe just loves firetrucks and decided it was a good idea. And Holden, I think he just saw the Hulk costume and wanted it. I have a "nothing scary" rule with our Halloween festivities. So I think Holden chose Hulk because he still looked scary even though he's a good guy. I think he's a good guy. ???  I know very little about super heroes. 

Abe's little buddy Cruz came along, as is our tradition. For the past several years we have had two Halloween traditions at our house. 1) Frito chili pie for dinner and 2) trick-or-treating with these friends.

After 8 little legs were worn out from walking a portion of our neighborhood, the boys got to check out their goods and eat some candy.

 The next Sunday afternoon we finally got around to carving our pumpkin. Clearly, we just were not on top of it this year. Except costumes. I think I had those ordered back in August. But this year the big boys helped Jeremy do some of the carving.

 The finished product.

Another Halloween of fun in the books!