Yesterday, my sweet baby boy turned 3. Everyone tells you time gets faster every year but my goodness, these past three years have simultaneously felt like a lifetime and gone by in a blink. How does that happen? I never shared these photos from almost a year ago and I couldn’t pass up the chance to show my guy at 2 years old, one of the sweetest years of my life. 

We had his birthday party on Saturday with some of our friends here in Virginia and I’ve never seen this boy (or his baby sister) happier. January birthdays can be such a struggle because its fuh-reezing, everyone has an abundance of boogers, people are just in a back to school groove and all of the things. Here is my best January birthday life-hack. Are you ready?

Indoor bounce house.

That’s all.

I didn’t do pin the tail on the anything, I didn’t do musical chairs. I didn’t do freeze dance or cut firetrucks out of cardboard and paint them in my free time. I cleared out the furniture in my family room (my back didn’t thank me) and welcomed the delivery of a bounce house with a slide inside. Joy level: 1,000. Effort level: 0.

I’ll be sharing photos and sources from his party soon, but in the meantime I wanted to look back on some posts that warm my heart from when this sweet boy of mine was brand new around here. Three years later, I just can’t even believe I get to call this kid my son. He is so intelligent. He is so strong yet so gentle (most of the time.) He reflects my heart back to me and shows me in his kindness and innocence how much I desperately need Jesus to be able to raise him how I’ve been called to. He absolutely cracks me up and his baby sister thinks he’s funnier than Steve Martin and Kevin Hart combined.

And just so they’re documented on the blog until blogs no longer exist, here are his favorites from year 3:

Favorite Books:

Dragons Love Tacos, Robosauce, I Love You Forever, The Book With No Pictures, The Adventure Bible, 5 Minute Superhero Stories, The Day the Crayons Quit, When God Made You

Favorite Movies:

Any Bible Story (but mostly Jonah, David and Goliath-which he calls David and Golilya- and Joshua) Ratatoullie, Cars 1,2,3, The Secret Life of Pets, “Maui”, “Freeze”

Favorite Activities:

Going to the Park, playing ‘crashing game’, dancing…non-stop, wrestling, reading, building anything and everything, running and bike riding, when he gets to go to Baltimore and see our house projects, boxing with Daddy

Favorite Songs:

Don’t Worry About Anything, the ‘Sing’ Soundtrack, Splish-Splash, ‘Do You Like Broccoli’, Veggie Tales, Oldies

My Favorite Oshiolema-isms:

“I need to use my echolocation to find it.” Whenever Keogena cries he tries to guess the reason and console her. Some of my favorites are “I know you need to poop. I know. I’m sorry.” “I know you wish Daddy were home, but he’s at work. It’s alright.” “I know you wanna be bigger. I know.” And whenever I’m sad or say “Oh no!” He says “It’s alright, Mommy. I will be your best friend.” He always brings in the comfort and protection of God which melts me. “I know it hurts to brush our back teeth, Keogena, but God will heal us.” “I was a little bit scared to jump off the high board but God protected me.” “I”I think I have a very good idea, Mom.” When he had a cough this year and I’d tell him to take a drink of water, he’d say “It’s alright mom, I don’t need water to heal me. God will heal me.”

Also, his number one most used phrase of the year was “how come?” And I may or may not have instituted a rule on when he’s reached his “how come” limit. I’m ashamed, but it was a survival tool.

The thing I’m most proud of is his heart for the Lord and his thirst for more of Him every single day.

He says when he grows up, he’s going to marry me.

I kind of hope he never changes his mind.

 

Happy Birthday, Angel Boy!

 

Look back on my first post after delivery here

And read my birth story (and watch the video!)here

(spoiler alert, it was a LONG. and ROUGH. one, but this kid is worth it one hundred times over)