My Baby Boy Jackson is Three!

I cannot believe Jackson is already 3 years old. We have been through a lot with Jackson, and I am so proud of him and so happy to see how Jesus has answered our prayers. It is still hard for us to watch video when he turned 2 years old, because he was not talking and we could have helped him earlier by having his tongue clipped, but God was so gracious to reveal to us what Jackson's physical problems were! It is so funny when people ask us how we found out that Jackson had a short frenulum, I tell them God revealed it to us after we were on our face in prayer asking for answers. God gets all the glory and it is a beautiful testimony of HIS faithfulness.

Back to Jackson's birthday. I love to plan, but I had never planned a birthday party for my own children. So, it started off that we would just invite three of Jackson's friends since he was turning three. Well, it then ended up being 9 of Jackson's friends...

• So first, I did not want to spend our hard earned money on invitations I did not really like, and I wanted to somehow get Jackson's picture on the invitation without spending a lot of money. Ashley told me who did Price's invitation and it was a friend of hers who works for little bug design. She is a graphic designer and charged $20 to do the invitations but then she sent them to Walmart and I only spent $2.50 on 15 of them. She was gracious enough to go through my kodak galleries and find a picture of Jackson that would work.They turned out perfect! Email me at emilywallace80@hotmail.com for her contact information.
  
• Second was the cake. Again, Ashley told me who did their cake and it was a lady who works out of her house and makes her cakes from scratch. Vintage Bakery is who did Jackson's cake and it was delicious. She charged $38 which I think is almost what I paid for Jackson's cake last year from publix (Publix's cakes are wonderful as well).
  
• Third, was what should we do at the party? At first, I thought about having a slip and slide, but then the thought of everyone coming into the house all wet was not very exciting to me. So I thought about what was Jackson's favorite thing to do besides playing sports? As I was thinking about it, he was jumping on the couch, so I thought great we will have a bounce house. The children's ministry had one we could borrow.
• Ashley J did the shirt for Jackson that said "3 Jackson." I just got her a shirt and some fabric from Hobby Lobby. I loved his shirt!
  
• Finally, what do we eat? Hamburgers and hot dogs are easy (looking back now I should have just done hot dogs). I just had plain potato chips and Charlie's mom made her great chili to go on the hot dogs.
• Overall, Jackson had a great time with his friends and was so excited for them to be there. I really liked having a birthday party at our house and opening up our house to friends. However, the other issue was that there was not enough room for everyone in our house, so I wanted everyone to be outside and was hot!
  
• What are your suggestions on how to have an inexpensive birthday party? I had one mom tell me that I can have a birthday party at the fire station and then go across the street to a park for cake and presents. Who knows what I am going to do for Abigail when she turns one. The best advice I have gotten is whatever your child enjoys doing, have a party doing that!