happy 3rd birthday, nolan!!

Nolan turned 3 back in February, and we just had the BEST time celebrating him!!  Birthdays are SO special to me, I just love rejoicing in the blessing that our children are to us.

Nolan's birthday was on a Sunday, so I made him a birthday boy crown out of orange (his favorite color!) paper & we got him donut holes to share with his class at church.

One of Nolan's favorite things to do is art.  So on the evening of his birthday we did a family art project!  We went to Michael's and got 4 small square canvases, then everyone got to pick out 3 paint colors (because he turned 3, of course!) and we had to see what we could come up with using only our 3 colors.  Before we headed home to paint we stopped at BerryStar and got some frozen yogurt, & sang happy birthday to Nolan (very loudly).  Nolan picked Day of the Diesels to watch while we painted, and we just had the funnest time!  So fun, this is really the only picture I have of us painting (and I don't have any after pictures... Dathan just hung them on the wall so maybe soon!).

  

The next weekend we threw Nolan a little party.  I mean literally threw it together- like sent a text on Thursday night asking our friends if they were free Saturday morning for a party.  Total mommy fail.  What can I say?  It totally came up way faster than I realized haha!  My mom had the amazing idea to have his party at the park.  I don't know why that never crossed my mind (maybe because it was February?) but the weather was GORGEOUS and it was the BEST idea ever.  Nothing to clean up before or after, and no games/activities to plan for a bunch of preschool kids because the playground was enough.  We had cupcakes, bottles of water, & juice boxes- so simple!  And would you believe- we had SO many people show up!  Apparently, if you want a large turn out for your kid's party you just need to go ahead and plan it 2 days beforehand.  I DID make his cupcakes from scratch... he wanted red ones, so I made red velvet.  They were good, but I realized I am just not a fan of cream cheese frosting!

(In the top 2 pictures Nolan was trying to show me on his fingers that he was 3... hahahaha)

Then... if that wasn't enough celebrating... we had one more thing in mind.  We had decided that, starting this year, instead of getting the kids presents for their birthdays we were going to give them a gift of quality time- doing something they love with just momma & daddy.  The kids will get enough toys from their grandparents & friends, and we certainly don't need anymore in our house.  But the special, focused time with just mom & dad is priceless.  Since Nolan loves art, Dathan & I wanted to take him to paint a dream.  God is so cool- right around the time we were wanting to go, I receive an email from them saying that the first 30 customers on a particular day would get 50% off their ENTIRE purchase!  So we dropped Sean & Pax off with my parents and went.  What a blessing to do something we wanted to do already for HALF OFF!  

 

Of course Nolan picked a train to paint ;)

After we painted we took him out to lunch.  We ate at Panda Express, or "Polar Express" as he calls it... his choice.  Ahhh- he brings us so much joy! :)