Lucky # 3

My baby boy is 3 already! It's lucky because the kiddo got to celebrate his birthday for three weeks in a row. Due to my parents being in South Dakota to be with my mom's family on the one year anniversary of her sister's passing, and due to two of my sisters being in louisville for a half marathon on Avett's birthday, we celebrated his birthday with my side the week before. Usually we do one big party with both families together, but the weekend following Avett's we were already going to be in MI for my future sister-in-laws wedding shower and it just didn't make sense to have people travel such long ways two weekends in a row when we could just celebrate both events in the same weekend. The weekend of his birthday was busy as I had a friend in town from CO that I wanted to meet up with and we had another friend's surprise 30th party on Avett's actual birthday. But we still managed to squeeze some personal birthday boy celebrations in. We started off by running to Target just to do some errands but we let Avett pick out a toy since I had his gifts divided between both parties for him to open. In the entire store, he chose a kid's push room. I didn't really expect anything else. For the real birthday deal, we went to the bowling alley with my sister and her boyfriend. It was Avett's first time and he really enjoyed himself. Everyone got to take turns helping him carry his ball and set it on the ramp. Then he would squat down to watch his ball gondown the alley and once it knocked the pins over he would jump and yell in excitement. We loved the experience so much and can't wait to do it again!
The theme for his parties was dinosaurs! I used my cricut to cut out dinosaur shapes that we used as invited and as decorations. Daddy drew big dinosaur footprints on the sidewalk leading up to the party. And I made some big 3a to hang on the walls that looked like dinosaurs. The tricky part was getting all of this over to MI without crumpling it but we succeeded. The best part of party #1 was the dirt cake that had a Serb of new baby dinosaurs climbing in it.
Avett was very spoiled! He got a new bike from my parents, a golf set and insect catchers from Aaron's parents, Uncle Brandon got him the cutest fishing pole that was put to the test in Nana's pond, he got a real-life looking vacuum that he couldn't have been more excited about. Every time Aaron would vacuum, Avett would pull his out and yell "yea! Woohoo!" He got a dinosaur kite and dinosaur bubbles from the Roberts. He got a big toy dinosaur that lights up and roars from his Auntie Dorey but he's deathly afraid of it. And he got a bunch of books and clothes from a whole slew of us. My favorite gift to him from us was the cutest pair of dinosaur shoes. There's no way to describe them in a way that you'd understand their cuteness so you'll just have to take my word for it.
At three years old, Avett weighs a hefty 26.5lbs and is 35" tall. I could see that he had gotten taller but I knew there wasn't much weight added to him. Aaron said the appointment was a night mare. He loves our doctor and going to Haddie's appointments but he hasn't had a check up in a year and his response to all of the poking and prodding was to hide under the chair and make animal noises, mostly roars towards the doctor. When he had to get his measurements, Aaron said he had to hold his head and knees against the wall. All while Avett was making a scene, which easily flustered Aaron. He said he kept bribing Avett with donuts to try and get him to behave which clearly didn't work. And after the appointmentt Avett of course asked to go get donuts and Aaron said "no" for obvious reasons and then told me "I didn't want to go anywhere else with him".
Avs is getting smarter and more independent every day. He knows the words to most nursery rhymes, knows his ABCs (singing, not identifying), recites so many books from memory, copies all of the lines in movies and anything you say, copies movie scenes when he's playing, has actually learned his colors (so not as concerned that he's color blind), is working on drawing circles, is also working on taking his shirts and pants off and dressing his lower body. He is fully potty trained. And thanks to hard work and coaching from me, he knows how to get in and out of Haddie's crib.
He loves playing with his toy animals and dinosaurs, especially in the tub. Loves playing in the tub and is getting better about the fact that he actually has to get washed in the tub. He loves sticker books. Enjoys playing with his sister and puppy. Does not like sharing his toys with Haddie and gets pretty jealous of the attention she gets so he likes to copy her and steal her toys to do so. He does love his sister though and always says goodnight to her, gives her a kiss and says "I wuf you Paddy".
He's gotten a teensy but better about trying more foods at dinner time.
Not a whole lot on his dislike list. Just the way I like it.