The Adventures of Team Nelson: Joe's 3rd birthday

So, I can't post any more about our saga with the move and such without taking some time to comment on Joseph's birthday. First of all, I cannot believe that our little boy turned 3 this year. I feel like it was just the other day that we had moved into our house in Olney, MD and a few days later, we were driving up 95 North to Christiana hospital and little Joe was born at about 9 am on August 3, 2007! A whole lot has happened since then, including 2 moves to 2 different states and 2 more little boys! What a whirlwind!

What a blessing he has been to our lives! He is getting to be such a little man and loves to help his Daddy fix things and of course, always loves to be my sous chef in the kitchen. He speaks very well for his age and is always asking "what is that word?" as in "what does that word mean?" It is pretty cute. We are also entering a bit of a whiny stage as well which we did not have before. Constant reminders for 'No whining' can be heard throughout the day. Ugh. It gets tiring sometimes.

Joe loves to roar like a dinosaur!

Back to the party.....so, since we were going to be in the middle of a move and would not be able to have a family party, we decided to have a party during 'The Gathering' which is a long weekend vacation that a bunch of families do every other year together. Since we were the organizers this year, we figured it would be ok. Dinosaurs are quite popular right now and Joe agreed that it would be a good theme so I started looking for ideas. I ordered some cute dinosaur masks from OTC (Oriental Trading Co.) and bought a bunch of stuff from Michael's too. We started off with a dinosaur egg hunt outside, then Jeremy found a basin to put the eggs in so they could hatch. After that, the kids decorated their goody bags with dinosaur foam stickers and dinosaur stamps and they got their masks. After lunch of bronto-burgers and sweet potato fries, we had the main event! Yummy chocolate cupcakes! I actually made vegan cupcakes since one of the little girls is allergic to dairy and the kids never even noticed. They gobbled up the treats like crazy. I think the most fun was seeing Joe when he saw the huge blow up dinosaur we had for them to play with. After the party, we spent the afternoon at a Minor League baseball game. At the end, the kids got to run around the bases and they had a blast. All in all, it was a fun day I think.