Gavin is 4!

Where does time go? My sweet baby boy is 4! The last few weeks have been a whirl-wind.  First, Gavin, Lexi, and I flew to Chicago and met up with my family. From there, we continued on to Indiana for our family reunion, then drove to Wisconsin and stayed for a couple of days before flying back home. We had a great time! As if I needed it, it reminded me how hard it is to be away from family. It was so sweet to see Gavin and Lexi interacting with their cousins.

When we got back, we had beautiful new floors thanks to Greg and his buddy, Duff, a messy house, and a house guest! Greg's mom flew into town to spend the week of Gavin's birthday with us. Oh, how I love when Grandma Mary comes to visit! Gavin's birthday was on a Tuesday, so we started the day off with a cupcake for breakfast, followed by presents, a shopping trip to pick out more presents from Grandma Mary, and ending with going out for frozen yogurt after dinner.

And let me tell you a little story behind that fire truck.  Two years ago, Gavin got that exact fire truck for Christmas. It was his favorite toy for a year. When the next Christmas rolled around, I decided it was time to teach Gavin about giving. I explained to him that not all children were as lucky as he was, and they didn't have as many toys to play with. I asked him to go through his toys and pick some out that he didn't play with much anymore that we could give to those children (donate to Goodwill). He did, and among those things was his beloved fire truck. I said, "Gavin, are you sure you want to give this away? You won't have it to play with anymore." He assured me that he did, and that was that. A couple of months later, he was playing, and came to me and asked, "Momma, where's my fire truck?" As panic struck, I replied "It's with the rest of your cars," referring to the little Matchbox fire truck that I knew he wasn't referring to.  "No," he says, "my big fire truck." I said, "Baby, you don't have a big fire truck."  "But I had one yesterday," he says in a voice that nearly broke my heart. I reminded him that he gave it away to a child that didn't have any toys to play with and that he made that child very happy. I expected him to be more upset, but instead he just said "Okay," and that was that. Every time we saw that toy at the store he would stop and play with it. And recently he picked it out to give to one of his friends for his birthday, and told me that he wanted one for his birthday too. Oh, my sweet, sweet boy.

We had his birthday party on Sunday. Spoiled much? I think so. I didn't have much time to plan, so we just had a small party with a couple of his playgroup friends and some neighbors. He was convinced that he wanted the Mickey Mouse clubhouse cake I had made for one of his friends, even though he hasn't been into Mickey Mouse for the longest time. So, I showed him some pictures of some cakes that I thought he might like, and sure enough, he picked the semi-truck. Another transportation themed party...in his four years we have had a train, an airplane, a tractor, and now a semi-truck! 

The weather decided to cooperate for us, even though the forecast called for thunderstorms. My history with the weather is not good...every party that I have had since we lived in Mississippi, it's rained, so we were forced inside instead of enjoying our huge backyard! The kids played outside and painted pumpkins, our annual tradition for Gavin's birthday. They really got into it this year, it was really fun!

The party favors I made for the kids...sugar cookies shaped like semi-trucks, covered in homemade marshmallow fondant, and decorated with food markers!

Gavin's is the one with green spikey hair, and mine is on the right of his with the purple hair.

And last, but certainly not least, the kids' birthdays always make me go down memory lane, so I put together this little montage of Gavin so y'all can too! Enjoy!