Harry Noodle at 3 years old

Our little sweetie is out of the "not so terrible" twos, and into the threes!  I don't know what they call the threes, but I'm sure we are in for another exciting, action-packed year with our boisterous son!  Yesterday we started the day with a bang by letting him open his presents first thing before Elliot got up.  This was actually a good idea since there was no fighting over the gifts!  He received a watch, a LeapFrog ClickStart computer, a toddler-sized driver golf club, and a fishing pole.  He really liked everything, but he is infatuated with the computer!  He played it the whole time we were in the shower getting ready for the day with out moving from his spot on the couch, and he has played it for over an hour this morning as well.  I'm sure the newness will wear off and it won't be that cool in a few days, but for now he thinks it's the stuff.  After that, we all went to breakfast at Cracker Barrel.  It was such a beautiful day that we headed to the backyard and played outside as soon as we got home.  Harry practiced "hitting" golf balls outside with his new club for a while.  We stayed outside until naptime, and after that, I had a big surprise in store for him.  Travis had a track meet last night, but I didn't want that to stop us from doing something fun.  So, I enlisted the help of Mom, Esther and Paul, Scottie and Julia to take him.....bowling!  I know, not too terribly exciting for most, but for Harry....it is by far his favorite thing to do!  Daddy was able to make it there during the 2nd game, so he didn't have to miss out on all the fun.  The only way to tear him away from the lanes was to offer to take him to the arcade, and when it was time to go home, the poor guy was heartbroken.  He didn't throw an outrageous fit, but he was so sad.  "I want to do it again!" was his statement over and over (and over) again.  When everyone was telling him bye, he would tell them he wanted to do it again.  If you asked him if he had fun, he would say he wanted to do it again in this poor little voice like he was in shock that it was all over.  He is so funny how he gets so attached to something (see above story about the computer, too) and he has such a singular focus on that one thing that he has no desire to do anything else.  I am glad he had fun, and I was really touched that our awesome friends spent their Friday night bowling with a 3 year old!

The ClickStart...his favorite present (see that he is also wearing his watch)

The Spiderman fishing pole

Harry getting ready to bowl

All in all, we had a great day and were feeling extra blessed that God gave us Harry.  Although parenting him at times can be frustrating, it is overwhelmingly a joy and an absolute privilege.  I don't want time to speed up, but he wows us every single day with what he says and does, I am so excited about our future together.  We love you, sweetie, and hope you had an awesome day!   

 Since I have done, shall we say, a really poor job at updating lately and especially at posting pictures, I picked a few of my favorites from the last month and I'll narrate along.  There are several reasons for the lack of updating.  First of all, I got sucked into the phenomenon that is the Twilight book series and as usual, once I got started all of my free time (naps and later in the evening) got devoted to that.  Secondly, I like to upload the pictures at work (shhhhhhhh!) because it is so much faster than doing it on our aging laptop.  I think it is due to die any second now!  So here we go starting off with Elliot's birthday evening.....

That evening we headed to the mall to go to Build-a-Bear where we acquired Bear (now known as Harry Bear) and Spiderman.  We stopped for dinner at Johnny Rocket's for dinner before we headed home.  This is where Elliot discovered his love for burgers.  If I get them a cheeseburger to share, Elliot generally eats 3/4 of it and Harry might finish the other 1/4.  It is mind boggling to me how much more food Elliot packs away than Harry!  I also remember giving Elliot a drink of my chocolate peanut butter milkshake before gasping in horror that I gave my baby peanut butter!!  Then I remembered that we were going to the doctor the next morning and we would most likely get the all clear for all foods anyway, so it was probably not a big deal.  We did, and it wasn't.  Whew!

These are, of course, from Elliot's first birthday party.  As you can see, he loved the cake, but wasn't too terribly messy with it.  I so love that child!!  He had a great birthday party and we were so grateful to have so many friends and family celebrate with us!

Harry's preschool had an Easter parade near the beginning of the month.  The kids had worked hard in class making their "costumes" and Easter baskets.  The kids in Harry's class were either bees or bunnies, but I'm not sure if they got to pick what they were going to be or if they we assigned.  They also had an Easter egg hunt.  The kids were all so cute!  Harry liked wearing his costume, but he was pretty eager to leave as soon as he found some eggs.  I'm not really sure why, but I think he was worried I was going to leave him there. 

This was by far the highlight of Harry's week, and quite possibly his year!  Saturday Travis and I took him to Collin's birthday party...at a bowling alley!!  As you can see by the top picture, he was absolutely elated!  We left Elliot with Grandma because we weren't sure we could contain both of them since the last time Harry was at a real bowling alley he tried to run down the lanes.  What a difference a few months make!  He was very, very, very excited, but he was also awesome at waiting his turn, being patient, and cheering on the other bowlers.  He was devastated when the time was up!  He will tell anyone who will listen (and if you aren't listening, he will repeat himself until you have no choice) the he went bowling and that he got a strike and a spare.  Which he did with the help of the ramp.  By the end of the game, he could pick the ball up, place it on the ramp,  and roll it with no help.  Watch out pro bowlers--Harry is coming for you!

We had a great Easter!  Mom and Grandma came over to go to church with us.  Our pastors, as always, delivered a terrific message that relayed the Easter message perfectly.  We then headed to Jamie's house for Easter dinner and another egg hunt.  As you can see from Harry's basket, there were more than eggs to be found!  The Easter Bunnies were very kind!  We had a small hunt set up inside for Elliot, but Harry pretty much did it for him! 

Little Elly Belly has graduated from his highchair to a booster seat at the family table.  I gave him some mandarin oranges this morning for the first time and he couldn't get them in his mouth fast enough!  There is a reason for his milk being pink...I have been flavoring it to get him to drink it!  (hangs head in shame)  As good as his appetite is, there was nothing I could do to get him to drink the whole milk plain.  He flat out refused!  Since he definitely needs the fat and calories, I asked the Nestle Quik bunny for some help.  He doesn't drink as much as I would like, but he is doing much better.  Some is better than none at all, I suppose!

The next big thing we have coming up is Harry's 3rd birthday on Friday!  In some ways, it seems like he's been around forever because I can't imagine my life without him.  But as every parent says, the time does go by so extremely fast that you want to hold on to every memory.  3.....wow, just wow!!