Isaac's Birthday

This was the first year Isaac understood what a birthday was.  I made the mistake of thinking he would forget about the toy I put in our shopping cart a few weeks ahead of time.  Was I ever wrong!  Not a day went by where I did not hear about the much anticipated "Diego Train." 

First things first, assisted me in baking his birthday cake.  I took the easy way out and stuck with a box mix.  He was probably much more excited about the rainbow sprinkles than he would have been about something from scratch.  Right?  

For lunch we headed over to Chik-Fil-A.  Isaac loves this place.  I'm not sure if it is because of the food, or the play structure... or maybe both.  He loves their criss-cut fries and fresh squeezed lemonade.

Once Charlie got home from work we took some time to open presents.  Of course the Diego train was Isaac's favorite.  I shouldn't have even bothered with anything else!  (I know this looks like an enormous pile of presents but it really wasn't that much.)  

That evening we headed to Disneyland for a couple of hours.  Charlie is really not a fan of Disneyland, but he did have a season pass, and for Isaac - he was willing to use it.  Here's Isaac riding the Tea Cups. 

And finally we headed home for cake and ice cream.  I put these plastic cars & trucks on top of the cake earlier in the day, and Isaac about went nuts waiting to pull them off of there!  

The biggest change we faced with Isaac's third birthday was the change in schools.  Isaac had to transfer from his services through Regional Center and ICEC to the Irvine School District and his new school, ECLC.  We had a great experience with ICEC and were very sad to move on, but the transition went pretty smoothly and we have seen a lot of great progress from Isaac since he started at his new school.

On his last day at ICEC everyone sang Happy Birthday to Isaac and he got to open a present.

The kids ate mini cupcakes and mini popsicles to celebrate.  

Here is Isaac with his birthday gift from ICEC: a new little backpack that is just his size.  He absolutely loves it.  Of course that made the really cute Pottery Barn backpack with his name embroidered on it that I got him for his birthday much less exciting, and he was kind of mad when I made him wear the one I bought to his new school.  

But he got over it.  Here he is on his first day of school at ECLC.  We were able to go visit the classroom ahead of time and meet his new teachers.  He had also been to the school several times for evaluations and since he got to play with lots of new toys there, he was pretty excited about his first day.

It's still a little hard for me to drop him off every morning.  ICEC is a parent/student program so I was there with him a lot and very involved.  ECLC is more like actual school.  I drop him off in the morning and pick him up three hours later.  I could even send him on the school bus if I wanted to but I'm not quite ready for that.  Isaac would absolutely love it though.  Maybe next year.