Mattimeo's Fourth Birthday

Happy Birthday Mattimeo!! You are now four years old and you are incredible. Here are some things about you this year:

• How to count to 20 in English and sometimes you can count to 20 in French
• Learned your colors (purple, pink, brown, green, orange, red, blue, yellow, black, white)
• Have been learning your shapes, you still get some confused, but you are growing more confident!
• Can do 24 pieced puzzles
• Can draw faces
• Able to cut with scissors
• You can take your shoes on and off, and get dressed and undressed (sometimes things are still backwards but more often than not you get it right now)
• You have memorized lots of stories, poems, and songs
• You are starting to identify letters of the alphabet and can write "Meo"
• You are good at direction following and can complete tasks given to you
• Can walk across a balance bean
• Can balance on one foot (tree pose)
• You are able to hit a baseball well when it's on a tee, getting better at catching balls, and are learning how to dribble and pass soccer balls.
• Ride your balance bike and take your feet off the ground
• Have been learning a lot about patience and kindness and sometimes catch yourself when you are feeling frustrated and are able to calm yourself down and patient. Not always, but you are certainly working on it!
• You have a very active imagination and play pretend all the time
• You are usually good about saying please and thank you and excuse me
• Your favorite movie is Planes Fire and Rescue
• Your favorite books have been Berenstain Bear books, Dr. Suess books, My Neighbor Totoro, and Little Blue Truck. But you have been reading LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of books and it's really hard to remember your favorites. You are a lover of books.
• You have Mama milk a little bit still. Usually just a sip before you go to bed at night. It's a special time for us that doesn't happen every night anymore.
• You sometimes sleep all night in your bed, but most nights you tip-toe into our room and snuggle in between Mama and Daddy just because you like to snuggle. We like it too.

At 6:30 am on your birthday you woke up and said "time to open my presents!!". So we did.

You were very grateful and excited. Link was too! Here is what we got for you.

Then we had your favorite breakfast (blueberry pancakes)  and headed over to Storyland, which is what you requested to do on your birthday.

Storyland! 8/7/2015

One thing you asked to do was get your face painted. We think that this is an overpriced activity that Storyland offers but decided to let you do it since it was your birthday and the first time you ever showed interest in that sort of thing. It went great at first.

But then you got nervous when we told you not to touch your face and you started saying you didn't want things on your face. And when the woman showed you your face with the mirror, you pushed the mirror away and started wailing. So I wasn't able to get a picture of you without tears, and we went right over to find a spot to sit and clean your face off. You were happy after that; you said the dragon (you chose) was too scary. C'est la vie.

The rest of the day went great though! You had homemade pizzas that you and Link helped make while pancakes were cooking in the morning.

Link thought it was really funny when you put his hat back on.

You spent about an hour just playing in the ball area. You guys love that place.

You do not like to meet characters at Storyland, they make you a little nervous, but Link ran over to see Paddington Bear and I had to hold him back until it was our turn. He gave Paddington Bear high-fives and had a grand ol time, and I think you liked watching him.

Your little brother is kind of wild. He ran off and I chased after him. You and Dad took the train while Link and I ran across the park to get to the tractors. Link loves running in the mist tents. He also likes the train, and when he saw you and Daddy go by on the train he decided to run over and climb on too.

Daddy was very excited that you wanted to go on the Polar Coaster with him! You guys went in the front row and had a gran old time. Link ran off the observation deck, took a hard right and ran into line for the rollercoaster, cut everyone in line and tried to board the coaster himself. Thankfully I found him before that happend. Thankfully YOU are a good listener Meo, or I would probably lose my mind.

Birthday Party  (8/9/2015)

You have been a little (and by that I mean a lot) obsessed with Planes Fire & Rescue. You love the movie, and you love to play pretend all day every day. You sleep with your Planes toys, they go in the car with us, they sit on the little table beside you while you eat. So it seemed like having a Planes party was a good idea. For the occasion you both wore your Planes F&R shirts.

Auntie Jess spent the night before your party and was a great help by making all your special airplane shaped sandwhiches.

You said you wanted blueberry cake, so I made a blueberry lemon cake with fresh berries and a cream cheese frosting. I came out delightfully moist, I'll have to save the recipe.

I also made cloud shaped butter cookies with a Maine maple glaze.

And Daddy made this VERY impressive airplane out of watermelon that he filled (and refilled several times) with yummy fruit salad.

Daddy and I aren't huge fans of balloons. I am terrified of them popping, and Daddy hates that they are filled with helium which is a non renewable resource. You really wanted balloons on your birthday though and we decided to make an exception. I don't know if it's something we will do next year, but it was pretty cool having them at your party and you love playing with them.

I made a runway for your planes with foam board and duct tape.

We had gliders to fly through a hula hoop course.

There was a reading tent with a bunch of airplane themed books.

And I made a whole bunch of tiny airplanes from clothespins and popsicle sticks to be painted like your favorite planes characters to throw through cloud shaped cutouts on a foam board.

These were the party favors you gave to your friends as a thank you for coming to your party.

Here is an airplane mobile I made from toilet paper rolls, wooden ice cream spoons, scrap cardboard and an embroidary hoop.

My favorite thing we set up for your party was an picture taking area. I made an airplane out of a paper box and we got a couple of children's aviator glasses, hung up a blue sheet and stuck on the clouds cut out from your plane throwing game. Then most of your friends let me take photos of them in the plane so we got this awesome collage!

Here are some photos from the party. We tried to limit the amount of friends we invited to ones you see most often so that you wouldn't feel overwhelmed, but it was still quite a big party! You did great with that though and were very comfortable with everyone there.

Among some very wonderful presents, some of your friends even made their own cards for you. I was so touched by their sweetness that I had to take a picture so you can remember them.

You had a marvelous fourth birthday party I think, and we are SO GRATEFUL for all the people who cam over to celebrate you and make the day special for you. You are a very loved little boy and I am so thankful for the friends and family we have in our lives. We love you with all of our hearts Mattimeo, we hope you had a happy birthday.