Fantastic Four!

On Saturday, Nile turned four.  I was going to put together some thoughts on Nile, and who he is at age four.  But right now I don't have time, so I will do that later.  This will just be the "how we spent Nile's birthday" post.

We decided just to have a low key, "let him pick" kind of day.

The morning started off with chocolate pancakes. How can a day go wrong when it starts with chocolate?

Then we had swim lessons - both of the two older boys started a new session of swim lessons on Saturday.

After swimming, we picked up a Dairy Queen ice cream cake (plain, undecorated, more on that later) and Subway for lunch.  Nile got his usual - white cheese and white bread, nothing else on it.  Apples and a juice box.

After lunch, the boys had a quiet time - at one point, everyone, including Tom, was asleep while I was able to get a few things done.  I decorated Nile's birthday cake, wrapped presents, and even had a bit of time to work on a knitting project.  It was heaven!  I sat down for about 10 minutes...then Nate woke up.

Then we all headed to the basement to paint.  Yep, Nile wanted to paint the basement for his birthday.  We were happy to let them help!  

Even Novak got in on the action!

Nate, painting the bedroom.

Typical Nile pose.  

After painting and a quick shower for me, we headed out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings.  

We came home to the previously mentioned ice cream cake and presents.  Nile was thrilled to get a catcher's mask, catcher's chest protector, and a pitching net.  

The cake - and a boy actually looking at the camera for once!

Checking out his reflection in the window.

It's a Transformers Party!

I thought that I'd share a few of the photos from Nate's birthday party we had at the farmhouse yesterday. It was the perfect sort of party - laid back and very little work to set up!


Nate with his Transformers birthday cake.

Blowing out the candles (he did get all 4 out). Emma and Nile were very interested, notice the look on Scott and Andrew's faces - I didn't even notice at the time that Andrew was covering his ears (for what reason I do not know)...


Cake-eating kids...


And yes, he did love each and every Transformer he got! The look on his face with this one is priceless!

4 years old and still growing

As I mentioned earlier, Wednesday was our first night in our "farmhouse" and it was also Nate's birthday. We are having a small "official" party on Sunday for family and friends, but we didn't want to let his birthday go uncelebrated.

So we had a small birthday party at the farmhouse for Nate. He got to open gifts from us and enjoy some birthday cupcakes.

(By the way, huge THANK YOU to Grandma Elaine for supplying the cupcakes, and for keeping the boys overnight on Tuesday. It was an enormous help...)

The favorite gift of Wednesday? The Transformers beach towel, of course. (also from Grandma)


And here's a video of him blowing out his candles.