Happy Birthday, Jesse!

According to my (admittedly shaky) calculations, my son has now been with us for 1826 days (after birth). What a gift this has been to us. This little guy, who prefers I call him "big guy," has impressed me with his kind heart, his generous hugs, his talkative nature, and his inability to watch any scary movie scene without plugging his ears or leaving the room.

We love him.

I always have a hard time finding the line between recognizing important positive traits in my children and bragging about them, but for now maybe it will just do to recognize that while he is far from perfect, we also see tremendous potential in him to bring justice into the world, to show mercy to others, and to follow Jesus. We hope and pray that this will be the case. In the meantime, we're thankful for the time during which he has been entrusted into our care.

Ok, this is a little controversial. Chrissy holds (strangely) the distinct and strong opinion that I should not begin Jesse's birthday photos with a shot of the barbecue. She fails to realize that in observing the BBQ, we observe a significant portion of Jesse's soul. This is reflected, of course,  in his sincere request that for his birthday dinner, we have hamburgers with cheese and pepperoni.

This, I argue, is an out-of-the-box idea. But really, why shouldn't we combine hamburgers and pepperoni - two of the most majestic meats found in (sort of) nature? Despite our disagreements on appropriate birthday photos, both Chrissy and I agreed that this was an excellent suggestion and we set about making Jesse's dreams come true. 

Lego: The original Minecraft.

Jesse is just realizing that he no longer has enough time in his day to pursue the infinite opportunities afforded by these small, simple blocks.

Make a firetruck: check. I think we have all felt this glow of satisfaction from completing an authentic Lego project. Right? 

All in all, it was a great day. We'll be having an actual birthday party for Jesse after the move, but this was a pretty heartwarming evening for us all the same.

Love you, Jesse bear.
Until next time...