The Marshall Family Blog: Isaac's Third Birthday!

My baby boy turned THREE at the end of March. March 27th to be exact. This boy has driven me crazier than I thought possible, but has also brought more joy and laughter into our family than I would have ever expected.

I wrote this on Facebook on his actual birthday: "Happy birthday to my sweet, crazy, funny, sports loving, music loving baby boy who is THREE today!"

He is a passionate little guy, and finds so much joy in life. Here are some fun facts about the I-Guy:

- He loves music. He loves to listen to music, sing songs, and LOVES instruments. Before he was three he could name all of the well known instruments, and many lesser known instruments by looking at them, and could even hear a song on the radio, and decipher what instruments were being used.
- His two favorite songs are "Look down," and "Do you hear the people sing," from Les Miserables. He calls them his big boy songs and will march around the house singing them in the manliest voice he can muster.
- He loves his daddy, but has an extra special attachment to me. He always gives (only) me the honor of brushing his teeth, tucking him into bed, and wiping his booty.
- He is a funny guy, and really tries to make people laugh a lot. Im sure he'll be the class clown once he goes to school.
- He also seems to find joy in testing the limits, and will push them and push them until he eventually ends up in time out. When he just turned three, I remember he spent A LOT of time in time out.
- He's a sly little guy. A few months ago he and Ella spent the night at Craigs parents house. After Isaac had been tucked into bed he was quiet for quite a while, and Ben (Craigs dad) thought that isaac was fast asleep until he heard his little footsteps down the stairs. Isaac said to Ben, "Granpa, do you have a broom?", Ben told Isaac that he would go upstairs with a broom and Isaac said, "You dont need to come upstairs, just give me the broom." Ha! Well, of course Ben knew to go upstairs immediately after that, and discovered that Isaac had found Craig old cup of smoke bombs, and unwrapped them all.
- He sucks his thumb ONLY while holding his two blankets, which he has to sleep with every night.
- He's very coordinated. My parents bought him an awesome scooter for Christmas last year, and by his third birthday he was zooming around everywhere on that thing. Up hillls, down hills, around curves... he can do it all without a problem, and he's so good at it that it doesn't even make me that nervous! Ella will try to use his scooter sometimes and I get knots in my stomach just watching her bc it is not nearly as easy for her.
- He is so smart in so many ways, but doesn't care to learn his letters and colors. (He is getting much better at those things now!)
- He's got this wild streak that many see in him right away (a lot of people say to me, "Oh he is ALL boy!"), but he still loves to cuddle with me, and is often so so sweet to his sisters.
- He is an awesome big brother and has never tried to hurt her, and has never done or said anything mean to her.
- He doesn't argue about wearing pants, but feels most comfortable in just his underwear and a t-shirt.
- His top 5 favorite things to do/play: play pirates, build barricades, sword fight, play with his cowboys and Indians, dress up (as Batman, and knight, a police man, and a firefighter).

His one birthday wish was to go to the movies with his cousin Grant. There were no good/appropriate movies in the theater for his age at the time, so we decided to take him and his cousin to the Science Museum of Virginia to check out all the cool stuff, and to see an I max. Well... we didn't end up doing the I max because it wasn't at a convenient time, so that was a bit of a birthday fail! We did still do the science museum, and the kids all had fun, so it wasn't a total fail... but I do remember Craig pointing out that the kids would have had just as much fun if we took them to a furniture store and let them run free. That is probably true - they weren't quite old enough to REALLY appreciate it.

Here are some pictures from that day:

After the science museum we headed to Craig's parents house to have a little birthday celebration with all of his VA cousins on that side. I have a feeling that was the highlight of his birthday. He loves his cousins!

We had pizza, cake, and ice cream...

He felt pretty excited when he saw the lit candles on his cake.

I love that he couldn't stop smiling even while blowing out his candles!

After dinner and dessert, it was present time! You can see how exhausted he was at that moment with the half smile and glazed over eyes. Ha! He snapped out of that pretty fast, though, when it was time to tear into those presents!