Goodness Me, Joseph is Three!

Yes, my little man is THREE!  This is the first "holiday" he's really understood, and I owe that to preschool.  Several of the kids have had their birthdays in the last 2 months, so Joseph was VERY excited to be the one getting sung to and getting to hand out his gifts to his friends (play doh).

We started out the morning by going in to Joseph's room to sing happy birthday when he woke up.  He got out of bed and crawled under it while we sang!  I guess we weren't that great.

Then he had the first of many temper tantrums about Nora "being loud".  It's a major issue in our household as of late.  Unfortunately, I can't make a baby be quiet, and I apparently can't keep Joseph from dissolving into tears, either!  Sometimes Mama can't win.

Anyway, we'd forgotten one of Joseph's presents at Christmas (it was hiding a little TOO well in a closet) so we had that out for him when he got downstairs.  He was pretty excited to see "big Thomas".

He also got to open a few presents we'd received by mail before school, which was very exciting for him.  He loved them

After school, it was time for more tantrums (yey!), lunch, and a nap.  While he slept, we brought up his toy kitchen from the basement (that I bought on craigslist and painted "stainless" and brown from pastels!) and I put a bunch of the accessories in (to avoid having MORE presents to wrap up - Ha!  Note the present wrapped in Christmas paper... that was all me.

Joseph luckily woke up in a better mood, and loved his kitchen.  Made all the work worth it.  We had TJ's parents, Godparents, and Grandma over for pizza and cupcakes, and Joseph loved being the center of attention.  He was amazed when I turned out the lights and brought out his cake with 3 candles lighting the way!

It was a pretty wonderful day all around.  Joseph's becoming more articulate every day, and says all sorts of funny things.  He uses a lot of big words, mostly adjectives like "wonderful", "properly", "beautiful", and more I can't think of in my exhausted haze.  He's a sensitive, caring, and well mannered little guy, and we're so so lucky to have him.