Jackson's Third Birthday

Our little boy turned three on Friday, February 11th! It is so hard to believe that much time has gone by already! We celebrated by going out for Chinese food and taking the kids to one of the waterparks in Brainerd. Curt would have preferred to stay home, doing the same old thing we do every other night, but I forced him to do this as a family. It did end up being really fun, and even Daddy had a good time (which I will remind him of in the future as needed). It took Jackson a while to warm up to the water, but once he did, he was comfortable playing even while we weren't right there with him (which took me a while, too). Carter wasn't a huge fan of it at all, so Curt and I took turns holding him and walking with him. A bit later in the night, he did tolerate sitting in the shallowest part of the water and touching the water that came out of some jets, and both of the boys loved being in the hot tub. I was worried that it wasn't safe for them, but it wasn't nearly as hot as a personal hot tub, or even those in some hotels. It led to the outdoors, and they liked that part, too. They didn't want to get out at the end of the night! It was late by the time we got home, but I still thought it was important for Jackson to have his birthday cake on the night of his actual birthday. I learned my lesson when he started to throw fits about wanting more cake when it was way too late. He couldn't have cared less if we'd done it the next day, since he'd fallen asleep in the car and forgotten all about it by the time he woke up at home! Anyway, we did enjoy more cake the next day, and he opened his presents that morning.



See how delirious with exhaustion he looked? What was I thinking?!

One of his presents was this giant ape. I couldn't get him to take it down from his face!

Opening J's birthday presents from Auntie Sheila (yep, Christmas paper in February! You can do that with kids!)