Harvey's birthday

Our firstborn turned 4 this weekend! It doesn't feel too crazy to me. What's strange is interacting with him and having conversations and experiencing his insight into things and his reasoning and mischeviousness and wisdom and all of that and think that 4 is much too small to be able to do all of those things. It's so fun though. He is so fun. He got a good stretch of celebrating in. He asked every morning for a few days before his birthday if it was his birthday yet. On the actual day he asked kind of groggily if he was 4 yet. I said yep. He very emphatically asked, Right now!?! He said multiple times during the day that he couldn't believe he was 4. He made celebrating so much fun.

Thursday night we worked on making this little poster board for his preschool. While I was working on it he said several times "this is FANTASTIC!!! All my friends are going to love this!". So we took it to school and showed all the kids the pictures. He took Scooby snack graham cracker treats. They all sang to him while he wore a crown.

He had been talking about going to Discovery Gateway for his birthday again for MONTHS! There was a brief time he thought maybe he wanted to do Boondocks. But then it got switched back to DG. That Saturday morning he woke up a little whinier than normal. Didn't drink all his milk. And ended up falling back asleep. For awhile. So then it was time to go and I tried waking him up. He was hot. I asked if he felt too sick to go. Of course not. So I gave him some Ibuprofen and we decided to still go for it. My parents, Laura and Kathryn were all going to meet us there. Halfway down there he started FREAKING out that his stomach was hurting. He was yelling to get his seatbelt off him. It wasn't even pushing on his stomach. Anyway - a few minutes after that he was coughing and gagged a little bit. I knew what was coming - I stuck my hand under his mouth (dumb) - and he puked 3 times all over me and him. We got pulled over and took his shirt and jacket off and tried to get him and me and the seat cleaned up. Put a new jacket on him. He didn't have another shirt. We tried to talk him into going home. He cried and cried that he wanted to go. My poor heart was broken for him at that moment. We decided to still try. I thought maybe he'd feel better having puked. He was looking like this the whole way down and still whimpering a lot. So we got off the exit in Salt Lake and then decided to bag it and got directly back on the freeway. We tempered the disappointment by stopping at Walmart. He picked out a monster truck - Thrasher and we rented the Ninjago movie. He seemed to perk up a little bit after that. My parents and Kathryn came up after they enjoyed DG with Logan :) They brought some presents which he enjoyed opening. He and Greta got a kitchen for their birthdays. While the boys put that together we watched Ninjago. He passed out halfway through and woke up with a fever and pretty upset. It was probably good we passed on the museum. We promised him a makeup day.



I made him this cake. It is MILDLY representative of one he found on pinterest that he said he wanted. I was going to have someone make one but the one he liked just had plastic dinosaurs on it so I figured I could pull it off. I added the volcano, which I have to say I was pretty proud of. Haha. I didn't take into account it's weight and it sort of collapsed the cake so I had to shove spare parts in under it and that made frosting interesting. It was a little bit fun to make and mostly stressful. He felt crappy again that night and didn't even want to look at it and didn't get too excited. But he loved it the next day.

During the evening when he was a little happier we did this birthday interview. I didn't do it with him last year which is unfortunate. I will do it starting at 3 with all kids. Or at least a similar form to this. He answered all the questions all by himself and didn't really even hesitate on any of them. It was so fun asking and hearing what he had to say. I have to say I was a little disappointed I'm not his favorite person in the whole world.  

I have to include this picture here. I've been meaning to add it somewhere. But he said it was his favorite book. This is something that cracks me up about him. This is his LONGEST standing habit..or something. He's gone through other books he wants read a lot or a phase of having to sleep with 5 little stuffed animals, etc etc. He has had to read this book EVERY morning, with his sippy cup of warm milk for over a year and a half easy. It started soon after he transitioned to a real bed while living at my parents. Sometimes if we are not at home we get by with a different book (never without milk, though). But at home - we HAVE to read this book. Lately he's been funny about not letting me start reading until he is prepped and ready to drink. He starts drinking at the same moment I start reading. It's quite fascinating really. Sometimes I can't wait until this phase passes. Can't say I'm super fond of the book anymore, (luckily there aren't too many words and I have been easily able to read it to him without looking for a LONG time) but I think I will be sad when he's done with it. I don't want him to get too grown up anytime soon :)

Playing with some toys before bed and trying out his scooter.

And this is the last picture taken of him as a 3 year old. Oh my heart. He is too precious and I am so in love with him.

He woke up on his birthday not 100% but he was 100% excited for presents :)

This wasn't the animal version that he played at the neighbors so he didn't think it was that cool. Oops.

This is a play mobil ambulance

I had been trying to get him to tell me something he would like special for his breakfast. After multiple options that were presented that weren't Lucky Charms, he settled on Roll-ups. I'm not sure if he didn't like them or just still didn't have an appetite. After he only ate half and the rest got disposed of...he did say he wanted another one. So maybe it wasn't all bad. Greta had an interesting technique to eating them.

He had one set of these 3-in-1 legos. But kept wanted Dad to switch dinosaurs. He got two more sets so he could always have all of them. Win for him and dad :)

Oh my heck this picture kills me. The way Greta is standing. Hahaha.

He picked this outfit out himself. And asked to wear a hat because it was going to make him look extra awesome. Then he got his sunglasses and he was ready to go to Mimi and Papa's! That's how he posed when I asked to take his picture. He walked around so proud and confident in how awesome he looked. I loved it.

Heather brought over a present. A T-rex that growls and walks. He loves it. Greta was pretty scared of it at first. Kind of funny. It definitely was the year of the dinosaur for him!

Heather actually left this for him Wednesday evening.

Posing with his cake at the February family birthday dinner party. Then more presents. Then candles.

Shoes from Mimi and Papa and cars from Grandma Elaine. Greta got an outfit from Mimi and Papa and a cute piggy bank from Grandma Elaine.

And now we are to the makeup party day. Tuesday we picked Tanner up early from work and went to California Pizza Kitchen. He was really not interested in doing lunch first - he just wanted to get to Discovery Gateway, dang it! They were cute and brought him a little birthday sundae and he thought that was pretty cool!

Greta approved too

Lottie needed a nap desperately but would NOT take one. She's turning into a "has to sleep in her own bed" kind of gal lately. Which is nice. And then also really not nice.  Greta missed her nap and had a few moments when things weren't going just right.  So other than those minor challenges, it was a blast. They played and played and loved it all. They probably could have stayed a lot longer but mom and dad were done :) And they all passed out not too long into the drive :)

Happy birthday to this sweet boy.  He has his fair share of naughty and whiney and difficult but he is by far a majority of sweet, funny, playful, smart, silly, helpful, considerate and kind. My heart runneth over with love for him and gratitude that I get to be his mom. I love watching him grow and learn, and I pray every day that I can be enough for him and everything he deserves. I also pray he forgives me for all the times I'm not enough and fall very short in being what he deserves.