Cinders and Ashes! Jett is Three Years Old!

Jett! You are three! You are three! You are three!



Happy Birthday, Jett! You turned three weeks ago, I can't believe it. So much has happened in the last few weeks that I barely know where to begin or how to include it all. For now we'll concentrate on your birthday weekend. It was, appropriately, a very Jett-friendly weekend. You loved it.

really, you loved it.

What made it so Jett-friendly, you ask? Well, for starters, we spent your birthday at Grammy and Papa's AND Aunt Jenny, Uncle Brian, and Ellie were there. (Yes, their sweet dog Bella was there too, and you survived). The morning of your birthday we set out a scavenger hunt for you and Ellie. You followed pictures all around the house and outside of it too, and at the end of the hunt, you found the treasure - a bike! (Bonus: it was Megan and Owen's old trike, so you know it's cool)! You sat down on that tricycle and looked about a thousand years old. We took a long walk/ride that afternoon, and spent a long time at the park, which made me feel like a thousand years old, what with all of the sliding and climbing and swinging we did together.

cousins on parade

We spent your birthday dinner at a restaurant that Grammy and Papa picked out and it was perfect. The restaurant had video games and skee ball and a merry-go-round, and you had a Papa with a pocket full of quarters - what luck! We all ate pizza and you ate a cheese stick. You opened presents and blew noisemakers and wore your birthday hat and sat right next to me all through dinner and we all just felt like a million bucks, celebrating you, and handing you presents to open.

cousins on the merry-go-round

One of the most memorable parts of your birthday, for me, was the fact that ever since Kai's birthday (three weeks before yours), you've been asking me not to sing "Happy Birthday" to you. You didn't want anyone singing happy birthday to you on your birthday, so we didn't. We put candles in the pizza and you blew them out in (relative) silence, perfectly happy. After dinner we went out for ice cream, and then five hours later, or something like that, you finally fell asleep.

a birthday puzzle - one of your favorite activities

Oh, but the party was not over, it was only beginning. Because the next day you saw Thomas. Thomas. Thomas the Train! Grammy and Papa said you would like it and they were right. It was magical. The national train museum hosted Thomas and his gear. You were particularly mesmerized by the table of battery-powered trains running on a web of tracks. (Silly me, I thought it would be ok for you to pick up a train, and then put it down on any old random place elsewhere on the track - what a crash that caused)! You could have spent hours watching those trains, and I could have spent hours watching you watch them.



But we couldn't stay there forever, eventually we had to drag ourselves away to actually ride Thomas. Now the car we sat in was like any metra car you've ever been on, and you've been on a few. But we could see Thomas pulling us, and you had your ticket to hold, and Grammy and Papa were with us, and it really couldn't get any better than that. I watched you hold your ticket, and then so seriously hand it over to the train conductor, and I just held my breath for fear of interrupting your sweet solemnity. We looked out the window and laughed with Daddy and widened our eyes in wonder when we drove over a bridge and saw only water below us.

Kai was with us too!

It was a hot, thirsty day, and at the end of it you didn't want your picture taken with Thomas and you didn't want to leave the trains, and Daddy and I were preparing for a meltdown when we realized that we could take a school bus back to our car. A school bus! We rode in a school bus! What a save. It was a fabulous day.

on the bus

Happy Birthday, Jett. You're pretty fabulous yourself, and we love you.