Andrew’s 4th Birthday

My little boy is 4 year old! The little boy that constantly makes me laugh, the one that has millions of questions, that lives for his cars and trucks and trains, is not so little anymore. Over the past few weeks I feel like I have seen him maturing right before my very eyes. Not just physically, although he’s definitely growing taller and stronger, but in so many other ways. He enunciates himself so much more clearly, he catches on to things in school very quickly, knows so many things I never even would have thought he knew, does many things for himself, and rarely throws tantrums anymore. He’s become more outgoing and talks to anyone!

We had a little family party for him the Saturday of his birthday. We had things going on all day, so it ended up being just before bed time, but he waited patiently for his presents, playing well on his own a lot of the day. He contentedly watched a movie downstairs while Leah & I decorated upstairs.

Andrew’s absolute favorite thing right now is a cartoon called PAW Patrol. It is a cartoon with 5 dogs who are basically like superheroes—they drive different types of vehicles (a firetruck, a dump truck, a helicopter, etc.) and go on missions to help people or other animals. They just released the toys in stores this month, so he didn’t even know they had any yet. Needless to say, the toys are very in demand and very difficult to find. We took several trips to Toys ‘r Us and they would be sold out the day after they got a new shipment. We were able to get a few things but not the big ones we wanted. Then one day I walked into K-Mart and there was one of the fire truck toys left. So we managed to get probably 4 different PAW Patrol things for him! They didn’t have any PAW Patrol decorations yet, so I went with a construction theme. This cake was really delicious! And easy, too, since I could just use chocolate frosting & sprinkles for dirt. It was blue & green inside!

 

Of course an essential part of any party is balloons!

    

Even before we got the cake out, Andrew said “This is the best birthday ever!” I love that he has a huge smile in his face in all of these pictures! He tried to blow out the candles even before we finished singing.

 

 

 

After cake it was time for presents! Grandma & Grandpa sent a box, too, so there was a huge pile! He blew through them all within minutes. He barely stopped to see what he’d gotten before moving on to the next. Of course, once they were all opened he wanted to play with everything and he really did love all of them, he just couldn’t wait what to see what was inside each package! Besides the PAW Patrol toys (including one truck, 3 small pups, 2 “badges” for his shirt, and one plush pup), he also got some new tracks to extend his train, he got some books from Grandma, a Bug Collecting Kit, a Hot Wheels ramp for the bath, and—by far one of his favorites—a battery-operated motorbike.

 

  

  

Even Leah & Abigail got presents, in an effort to keep them from getting too jealous. Although Abigail was much more interested in the bubble wrap and the boxes. (She got in the box willingly, by the way, and wanted to close herself in!)

  

We even arranged to have the PAW Patrol pups call him on the phone! They knew his name & age and everything! At that point he was a little more interested in playing with his toys, but he still thought it was pretty cool.

I am so excited to see this little guy grow in faith and in knowledge. He is so loving and so tender-hearted. He is easy to please and fun to be around. I can’t wait to see what fun is in store for our next 4 years!

 

Kids’ Camp (VBS) 2014

 

We had a very busy but very tiring and very rewarding week last week at our church’s Vacation Bible School. This year’s theme was Wilderness Escape, which took the kids back to Bible times to the Israelites in the wilderness. The staff all dressed as characters from Bible times. Leah and Andrew were in the same group this year, and had a blast!

After dinner each night, they started out with the Celebration Time. The songs were awesome! They were all mostly upbeat with hand-motions that made them catchy & easy to learn. They did a great job decorating the set to look like the desert, and of course Brett always does great getting them excited first thing when they get there!

By far one of their favorite parts was Moses’ tent, which was the story time. They literally acted out the story each day by walking around outside with a person dressed as Moses.

     

I helped out in the Craft Tent this year, which allowed me to see all the kids as they rotated through their stations, and gave me a chance to float a little too, to see everything. We made some really cool things, too, and the kids seemed to enjoy it.

 

Of course another favorite is always game time. I didn’t see much of what went on there, but I know it tired them all out! Friday we borrowed a huge bouncy castle for the final night and the kids LOVED it!

 

Abigail had a fun time, too, I think, even though she cried every night when someone would take her away from me. She played in the nursery most of the time, and loved on the little babies that were there, but she did get to bounce too on Friday.

 

Although most of the kids were either a lot younger or a lot older than Leah, she did make a new friend named Apple, who’s 4. And she’s going to start coming to our church more regularly, so she’s over the moon to now have 2 pretty good friends at church! Andrew is just happy to have anyone to play with!

       

Our Closing Ceremony was this morning during the church service. They got to say some of the memory verses they worked on each day, sing the songs, and talk about what they learned. I think they all learned a lot about Moses & the Israelites and had a great week!