Happy 3rd Birthday Gabriel!

The very excited Birthday Boy after waking up Sunday.

Gabriel helps out by reading the plans to his Dad.

Allison, Gabriel and Andrew enjoying all of the guys' hard work!

The entire outside crew.

The inside crew.

Sunday my little man turned three. I can't believe it! This was the first year he was totally aware of what it meant, and was very excited when he woke up that morning. Plus we had told him that Daddy and his Godfather, Uncle Keith, were going to put up a swing set for him. Uncle Keith has put up several swing sets, play houses, trampolines, and various other last minute toys, so we told him the best gift he could give us would be to come and help Jav, whose experience is just beginning!

Keith brought his oldest son, Matthew, to help out (I think he's 13 now). About two hours after they started working, the rest of the family came hauling Aunt Christine's homemade spaghetti sauce (she calls it "gravy", having come from an Italian family by way of New Jersey), meatballs and sausage, more gifts and homemade cards for Gabriel, and money to help out with the swing set. These people take their position as Godparents very seriously! And they give Gabriel so much love.

I did what I could to help out with the rest of dinner, but Christine basically took over and had everything ready by the time the guys finally finished 4 hours after they started. They said the instructions were only pictures, and most of the pictures were wrong. I think Jav would still be working on the thing for Christmas if we hadn't had Keith's help! We sat down to our fantastic dinner, while the kids hurried so they could go outside and play on the new toy. Gabriel was running around shouting, "It's finished! It's finished!" Allison and Andrew helped him try out everything, including the see saw which Gabriel had never been on before, and Allison sent him flying off of it when she sat down on her side. But he was a trooper and jumped right back up yelling, "I'm OK!" Thank goodness for thick St. Augustine grass!

We had bought a small cake for Gabriel (the big one will come for his party Saturday) and had tons of ice cream for cones for everyone else. My personal find was a gallon of Bluebell Chocolate-Covered Strawberry, which I'd never seen before and couldn't make my buggy drive by at the grocery store. I think it's my new favorite flavor. Gabriel sang Happy Birthday to himself with everybody else and blew out his candle (Mommy was really tired by then and only put one on instead of three for some reason). We were all exhausted but really happy at the end of the day, and knew that we had all made one little boy very, very happy.