Ethan is 4!

A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated Ethan's 4th birthday! Since we are in the process of moving, we opted for a low key family party, and we were lucky that both sets of grandparents and an aunt and uncle could join us! I prodded Ethan for weeks to tell me what kind of cake or theme he wanted. All he would say is that he wanted a cake with a lot of colors on it. I suggested all kinds of things that I thought were more interesting: Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Superheroes, Spiderman, etc. Nope, all of them were rejected in favor of a "colorful" cake. So I went with that. He picked out a cake that had red, blue, yellow and purple icing. I requested extra sprinkles. And he was very pleased with it all, which is really all that matters. 

With all 3 grandparents in town, he was the star of the show. The attention can be a bit overwhelming...

...which is why we got THIS look when we started singing. My sweet little birthday boy suddenly got very shy and refused to look at anyone while we were singing "Happy Birthday."

But as soon as the song was over, he was back to his cheerful, smiley self.

 Time to blow out the candles!

Those candles can be tough to blow out! Sometimes a guy needs a little help.

But he was a pro at devouring his cake. I don't think he's ever met a batch of icing that he didn't like.

Then it was time to open presents. He's really fascinated by space right now, so Mimi hit the jackpot with some books on space. The next time you see him, ask him to name some of the moons of Mars and Jupiter.

And Gran also scored with a big boy bicycle. He's thrilled to have graduated from his slow-poke tricycle.

What's this, you ask? It's a Spooner. Kind of like a skateboard without wheels. It's pretty amazing what you can do with one of these things. Perfect for a little boy who loves to flip and jump and spin.

Happy Birthday, sweet Ethan! You have such a kind and gentle heart and are quick to say "I'm sorry" when you do something wrong. You are full of energy and ask about a million questions a day. I can't wait to see you grow and learn and mature during this next year of life. As you tell me often, I love you from under the ground all the way to Pluto...and back.

More Christmas!

And the fun continued on Christmas morning with two excited kiddos ready to open presents!

I love how Ethan had to sit on his new trampoline in order to inspect the contents of his stocking :)

After the excitement of Christmas morning, it was time to head to Memphis to celebrate with Jeff's family.

"Silly Papa" is always a favorite with the kids!

The first snow of the season for the 4 cousins: Kaitlyn, Ethan, Noah and Eli

And another cute one taken by my (professional photographer) sister-in-law Jess

A present-opening frenzy with 4 little ones

Kaitlyn and Andrew working on the annual family puzzle (courtesy of Jess).

Pre-Christmas Fun

My little crafty girl decided that she wanted to make ornaments for her friends at school. Well, her female friends anyway :) So we made salt dough ornaments for the first time. They turned out okay. I will make some changes to my method when I make them again. But she had a blast painting them. I don't know if you can tell it from the picture or not, but she color-coordinated the paint brushes to match the paint colors. 

Ethan had his Christmas program at OC. I didn't get any good pictures of him at the actual program, but here he is at the party afterwards in his classroom.

 A tradition at their school is that Santa and Mrs. Claus come around to all the class parties and makes a quick visit. Here, Ethan is telling him that he wants his "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" Game.

 

And here's Ethan with his beloved teacher, Ms. Dele.

No Christmas season is complete without the annual "cookie-making" session. The kids were excited about this as usual. To be honest, this little tradition is usually more stressful than joyful for me, mainly because of sibling bickering and the inevitable mess. Not to mention that it takes four times as long to make cookies with two little "helpers." But I'm getting smarter about how to handle things as time goes on. This time, they each got their own separate workspace and were instructed to make whatever kind of cookies they wanted with their own batch of dough. We worked until they had filled up one cookie sheet (literally this took about 45 minutes for one pan of cookies!) and then they were done. I sent them off to watch Polar Express while I finished all the rest of the cookies in peace. In the end, everyone was happy.

 

Then Kaitlyn had her Christmas program...her last Christmas program at OC! (sniff, sniff) The kindergarten program is so much more advanced than the preschool program in terms of the number of songs they sing, the motions and the words. Here's a couple of shots of her during the songs.

Here she is with Santa and Mrs. Claus at her class party.

And with her teacher Ms. Melissa. I'm truly in awe at what these teachers can accomplish with a bunch of 5- and 6-year olds.

The kids after church on Sunday. 

And Mom got to come up and visit with us for several days this year.

We decided to let the kids open Gran's gifts on Christmas Eve so that they would have something to keep them occupied while we worked on dinner and getting packed (and so they wouldn't be on present-overload on Christmas morning!).

And then I tried a new tradition of making a gingerbread house from one of those pre-made kits. The kids had a lot of fun decorating it--although it was tough convincing them not to eat all the candy. Maybe we'll put this activity in the regular rotation for a while.

For some reason, Ethan decided that it was more fun to play Hungry Hungry Hippos while wearing mittens. It made me laugh, so I had to take a picture. 

Here's Kaitlyn showing off one of the necklaces Gran gave her. 

And these two had lots of fun putting together her new Lego kit. I called them the Lego Ladies.

 

Ethan was pretty entertained by his new Elefun game.  

And here they are on Christmas Eve. We put out reindeer food in the front yard, then we left some cookies and milk for Santa and some carrots for the reindeer.

 

More pics from the big day and our post-Christmas festivities in Memphis coming soon!

OC Christmas Breakfast

It's time once again for the annual OC Christmas Breakfast/Pictures with Santa. I think this was our best year ever for the Santa experience. No tears, no leaning away from Santa while eying him warily. Both kids were happy to sit in Santa's lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas.

After the Santa pics, we did the obligatory family picture on the stage of the auditorium. This year's theme was penguins, and some crafty people in our church decided to make an igloo out of milk cartons!

We bribed asked the kids to stand in front of the Christmas tree for a sibling picture.

Kaitlyn saw her good friend, Kate. She's a church friend and a school friend!

Then it was time for crafts. Thankfully this year's project was easier than the one last year. But Ethan is still taking notes from big sister :)

It takes a village to make a penguin ornament. And even then, the string will fall off as soon as you hang it on your tree. Sigh.