Jackson is THREE

What happened? It seems like it was only last week when our sweet little Jackson Lee was released from the NICU and into a room with me... it feels like I quickly blinked my eyes and BAM -- our 5 lb. 13 oz. Jax is THREE YEARS OLD!

I don't know where to even begin this post... Jackson has absolutely flourished this year and has become his own little person. I'm sure I'm not the first parent to say this, but Jackson really is the sweetest little boy I have ever known.

His smile spans his entire face and his big eyes can light up a room.

He loves watching/observing (and copying!) people and literally squeals with delight whenever he sees "big kids" that he can play with.

He's smart and amazes his dad and me every single day. (He has a tendency of putting his mind to something new and doing it on his own -- like the other day when he just randomly started singing the ABCs to me during lunch or when he had just turned two and started just randomly counting things!)

I have never seen him push or hit another child, which seems to be a pretty feat at 3.

After months and months of worrying about how our only child would do with a younger sibling, he completely exceeded our expectations and hasn't shown an ounce of jealousy toward Gabe since we brought him home... In fact, he won't leave him alone and will often stand over him until he wakes up! One of the sweetest Jackson/Gabe moments was a few weeks ago at mom's group when I had a giant box of pastries I was taking home to freeze for our next meeting -- anyway, I can never leave Jackson alone at church (because he's completely scarred from the one time I left him in the childcare room with his friends for an entire 3 minutes), so I brought him out to the car with me to leave off the pastries while a few of my friends were still in the room with a sleeping Gabe. I guess Jackson thought we were leaving because he began to fuss and I couldn't figure out why and asked what was going on and with tears in his eyes, he points back to the door and starts saying "Baby! Baby!" He was NOT about to let me forget his brother and became really upset at the thought of leaving him behind. Gabriel is very lucky to have such a loving and protective older brother :) Other memorable big brother moments include him informing us that Gabe is "WAKE" every time he walks by (which is comical when we're either holding him and/or Gabe is crying), his random forehead kisses, and making faces at his brother in an attempt at making him smile.

Jackson loves to "read"/be read to, which makes this book loving mamma very happy. (I have even found him laying on his bed, legs crossed a few times just reading a good book to himself!)

He gets SO engaged with whatever he is watching (which has recently been Fixer Upper and Finding Dory), acts out what is happening with toys (like cars, if the characters are driving), and copies whatever is being said.

I have never seen a toddler act so well during church! He is usually really great about sitting through mass with or without his snacks.

The list seriously goes on and on, so instead of sitting here making myself tear up, I will share a few pictures from his 3rd birthday party!

Our original plan for Jackson's birthday party was to once again have it at our local rec center, but they were completely booked through the month and we needed to come up with a Plan B. Since Jackson LOVES movie theaters and talks about seeing Finding Dory in the movie theater last summer, we decided to throw him a movie theater birthday party at home! Since our December was crazy busy, we threw it the Saturday of the month and the kids had a blast!!!

Happy Birthday, sweet Jackson! Thank you for making me a mommy three years ago today!