My baby is four now!

I don't know why, but I have a hard time when my kids turn 4. It just seems to be a really big number for such a small person. I can handle their first birthday, that's lots of fun with the cake smearing and all. Their second comes around and they are talking more and acting more rational, so it only stands to reason that they would be a year older. Three comes and you are praying that the twos are over. But four... yeah, that's a tough one for me.

So, Owen turned four yesterday. But he is still my same Owen... nothing big changed other than his number, but I still have a hard time with it! Four seems like they should be so grown up, but they are still such little kids; still my babies. I don't want them to be out of being a toddler, that means they are really growing up, and who wants that?! But there seems to be nothing I can do to stop them from getting older. Heavens, I have a baby that is already 9 and a half and I don't know how that one happened!

For his birthday we had a birthday lunch with Daddy, and as is our tradition, he got to pick out his meal. At first he wanted asparagus, homemade french fries, salomi and ketchup sandwiches, and powdered chocolate milk. Yum, who's ready for that meal?! We were able to disaude him from the salomi and ketchup sandwiches and change them to pork fu sandwiched (with the allowance that Mommy and Daddy were going to eat grilled cheese instead!) We still did the homemade fries, and the Mary Moo Milk chocolate milk, but we also added mandarin oranges and jello jigglers. What a well balanced meal he picked out :-)

He also wanted to make his own cake. So he picked a yellow cake mix - because yellow is of course his favorite color - and strawberry frosting. He also added blue and pink swirls to the mix to make it a "rainbow cake." Then topped it with enormous amounts of sprinkles. Ahhh, crunchy cake - every adult's favorite. He added everything to the mix, stirred it himself, poked it with a tooth pick to make sure it was done, and did all the sprinkling himself. And when he was done, he was one proud little fella!


We opened presents, sang him his song, and then ate cake once lunch was finished. And, as is her habit, Granny sent everyone else in the family "un-birthday gifts", so we all got to open our gifts as well. You can see Scott in the background showing off his behind Garrett showing of his. Teagan got some decorating spronkles since she loves baking, Garrett got some brainiac toys, and Scott and I got some chocolate yummies, while Owen got a sweater and some toy dogs from Granny.


The kids had each bought him a present too, which they thought was the best! Garrett picked out a car/plane launcher which he wanted to play with as soon as Owen unwrapped it, and Teagan bought him a knight with a treasure box to go with a set of knights and dragons Owen loves to play with. We gave him and outfit, some Diego outside toys, a sheet of dog stickers, and some yellow marbles. After the presents were opened Daddy played with the boys and some of the toys while Teagan played with Owen's dogs and I sat back smiling as I watched my lovely little family laughing and having a fun time. Owen was in heaven and it was a fun lunch for all of us.


Then we took Owen to his 4 year-old well visit at the doctor. Just to check and make sure he is growing on schedule and such like that and the doctor gave him a gift... a vaccination. Not quite as fun as the gifts from earlier! But when Owen found out that he was going to get a shot, he said that since he was four now, he wasn't going to cry when he got his shot, and sure enough he didn't! He took it in the leg, pulled his jeans up, and told the nurse he loved her. (I don't know where that came from, but it made her smile!) Then, as is my tradition, when the kids get shots we get to go out and get an ice cream. And since we all had some free Wendy's Frosty coupons in the car, that's where we went!

It was a fun ending to a fun day. He said all the prayers all day long, got to decide where everyone sat at lunch and dinner, was sung to all day long by us and other relatives, got phone calls from grandparents, ate only his favorite foods... he even got to pick out which shirt Teagan was going to wear (that was her idea, of course, but he picked out a Christmas sweatshirt because it had dogs on it!) Yep, kid birthdays are the best! And I am left trying to grapple with the idea that my baby isn't a baby anymore ~ he's 4 now. Just in time for baby number four to come along.