Jaden is THREE!

Jaden was brilliant when he chose to be born on Christmas Eve. 

Why?

Because it made his parents feel instantly sorry for him and determined to make his birthday awesome each year.

Even right out of the womb, this kid knew how to manipulate us. 

We decided as a family last year to give Jaden an experience rather than a big blow-out birthday party. Last year's experience was a trip to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. This year we took him out to the National Aquarium at Baltimore's Inner Harbor. We used hotel points to get a free night's stay nearby, so we had the whole day to explore!   

According to Jaden, we saw "fishies, sharks, and dolphins, and jellyfish. And one of the jellyfish was in time out. Because he throwed a fit."

We saw a tank with tons of jellyfish all clumped together in the center, except for one who was over on the very side of the tank by himself. So naturally he was in time out :).   

Saying hi to a turtle and an alligator

Jaden's favorite part--the escalators!

Seeing the dolphins!

Mom's favorite part...Santa was in the fish tank!!

After the aquarium we had some time where we hoped Jaden would nap...yep, nice thought...

So after a nap-less day we headed out to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner and had to wait the typical 45 minutes. We walked around outside along the harbor but Jaden was on the verge of epic meltdown. After awhile of trying to keep him away from the water and watching a cool Christmas light show on the side of the building, we headed back into the crowded restaurant. We took Jaden's coat off, so he was just wearing his birthday shirt. The next thing we knew, a guy from the bakery had come over to him with a little bowl of ice cream with sprinkles and a candle. It was so nice! We were just waiting--we hadn't spent any money there yet or anything. It totally did the trick for our tired toddler though. Both he and his parents were all over the whole dessert-before-dinner idea. That bakery man saved the night.  

We drove home EARLY the next morning...well drove straight to the church, actually, where we were all part of the ward's Christmas program for sacrament meeting. Steve played the piano, I sang and played the violin for one song, and even the Jadenator had a part! All the Primary children sang "Stars were Gleaming" and the little nursery kids who will be Sunbeams next year got to ring a bell. Jaden looked so tiny up there on the stand but he was dedicated to his part. He was the only kid who knew EXACTLY when to ring that bell and rang it for all he was worth! When he came down from the stand, he walked right up to us (we had come down from the stand and were sitting on the front row so we could see him), and said, VERY loudly, "Mom! Dad! I did a really good job!" Haha. We were so proud :). Side note, it kind of freaks me out that he's going to be a Sunbeam. Really? Nursery is over? Just like that and I don't have a baby anymore. :(

Anyway, back to birthday festivities.

When we got home from church, we let Jaden open his birthday presents from grandparents so they could watch him over Skype. Thank the heavens for Skype. So (are you keeping track?) that made our birthday festivities last for the 21st and the 22nd so far. 

THEN. 

We had the real deal on the 24th!!!

Steve and I had stayed up late on the 23rd blowing up balloons so I could put some in Jaden's crib in the morning before I woke him up (what kind of crazy impatient mom am I? Just the video recording kind who wanted to make sure I captured the moment for Daddy who had to work). He wasn't quite sure what was going on, but got really excited really fast!

I had plans for the day--I was going to take him to Dunkin Donuts to get a special birthday doughnut, but when I tried to get him excited about it, he said, "No thank you, maybe we can just have birthday breakfast at home?" Knife to the heart. Poor kid had been carted around everywhere every day for the past two weeks (hello holidays) and his one birthday wish was to spend the day AT. HOME. playing with his new toys from grandparents.

So that's what we did! We made it a great, low key day up until that evening when it was time to kick into Christmas Eve mode.  

Daddy got home early from work while Jaden was napping and tried to recreate what I had done in the morning. The only difference was that I had used about seven balloons and Steve used every single one we had blown up. Jaden was NOT impressed. :)

 So that was Jaden's birthday. 

Except the celebrations STILL weren't over.

When I was growing up, we only had friend birthday parties for ages 5, 8, 12, and 16 and all the other years I just had a family party with cake and ice cream on a Sunday evening. We figured we could recreate that tradition and just have a low-key cake and ice cream get together with some of our ward family and friends so Jaden could have people around to watch him blow out candles. 

It really was relaxed. Super low budget. Hardly any prep, just how I like it. 

Low key? 

Not so much.

Put 11 kids in our house and you're bound to have chaos, no matter how hard you try to make it Sunday appropriate.

It ended up being questionable--a little too much like a regular birthday party for me, and I don't think we'll be doing that on a Sunday again. It's hard to determine the difference between family/ward family/friends sometimes, ya know? But we still had a great time and Jaden was THRILLED in his own mellow way. You could tell he loved that people were celebrating HIM, singing to HIM, watching HIM blow out HIS candles. (Which was hilarious because he kept blowing up instead of out. He also got candles in a cupcake instead of his actual cake because he was getting over a cold.) 

So the tally comes out to: FOUR days of celebrating this spoiled little boy's birthday.

We had a blast, though! All I can say is he needs a sibling to take all the attention away from him :).

Happy Birthday Jaden! 

We love you and we're so glad you're in our family!

Thanks for giving us another reason to celebrate (four times) during the Christmas season!