Three

Three years. One year shy of an undergrad degree.  The number of grades I completed in Beaufort, South Carolina as a little girl.  Three years...The amount of time it took Wes and me to find each other and get married after college.  Three: my baby boy is not so much a baby anymore...

My sweet Liam is becoming a boy before my eyes.  Everything about him says "Hey, I'm a real person now, so you'd better listen to what I have to say!"  I love him with my whole heart, liver and lungs.  Or, more than the moon and the stars, as we like to say around here.  

Once again, we threw him a big party on his special day.  Thirteen family members and four friends.  (He insisted on Peter being there.)

I got all Martha-Stewart and made pie pops.  They were winners.  

Sissy and Lucy came into town to help us celebrate Liam and the sort-of-recent arrival of Aiden.  (Aiden, who was completely freaked out by Sissy's white hair until the very last day she was here and then by some miracle he let her hold him...)  

Liam is a pro at this whole birthday thing now.  Long gone are the days of wailing like a loon whenever anyone sings Happy Birthday.  He sat down and waited patiently to blow out his candle until the singing stopped, like he's been doing it that way for years.  

  

Cherub.  

Liam scored this year in the gift department.  He got his very own digital camera, paint, puzzles from MoMo and Grandpa, a dump truck from Grammy and Papa, an excavator, a new hat from Sissy, a lap art set and story-telling game from Auntie Tracie and Uncle Mike and probably a few things I'm forgetting.  He sure has a lot of generous people in his life.  

I've been wondering...do you think he'd be disappointed if every other year we contributed to his 529 plan in lieu of toys?  He might thank us someday...

Aiden slept through most of the happenings and charmed us all when he woke.  

While he is somewhat wary of Sissy, he is a HUGE fan of Lucy.  Can't blame him.  

And we had a birthday visitor who didn't want to feel excluded...

Impromptu family photo shoot...Couldn't quite get our acts together this time, but it was fun nonetheless.

This is my favorite.  

In three years, we have doubled the size of our family.  Life is beautiful.  Happy, happy birthday to my beautiful, smart, hard-working, independent, sweet, obedient (sometimes), loving Liam!  Three years.  TOO fast.  Thanks to everyone for loving my boy.