B-Day #3

For reasons to be more fully explained later, we decided to keep Aiden's birthday party particularly low-key this year. On his big day we had family over to the house for lunch, gifts and birthday cupcakes. It was just enough excitement to send Aiden to bed tuckered out for a nice long nap, but not quite enough to completely overstimulate and overwhelm.

The birthday boy had a great time, and got tons of attention (and a sweet little haul of birthday presents.)

Here is the obligatory "eating the cake" video montage. In this case the cake is a cupcake, and true to form Aiden remains quite stoic throughout the ordeal. In fact, his facial expression and overall demeanor are remarkably similar to the same moment from his first birthday. Watch it for yourself and see.

One of the most anticipated moments of the day (by us) was when Aiden opened this present:

It's a shirt that says "Big Brother," meaning that in about seven months Aiden is going to be a big brother, and Jen and I are going to be a mommy and daddy (again!) It was an exciting moment to share with the family, and we were glad that they could all be a part of it.

As exciting as it has been to anticipate the new baby, it has also been a tough few weeks as Jen's pregnancy has been a difficult one thus far. Although she and the little one are both very healthy Jen has had daily, almost debilitating migraine headaches. This, coupled with the more expected nausea, aches, and pains of early pregnancy, have forced us to scale back on some of the things that we would normally want to do (like elaborate birthday parties.)

Thankfully we were able to have a wonderful time celebrating with Aiden, and with our family! And we are grateful, of course, for the joy that is ahead of us, and hopeful that daily life will settle back into it's normal equilibrium sometime very soon.