Five years old feels like such a big milestone. I can't believe how fast we've gotten to this point, despite our efforts to slow time down. Meo is very excited to be five.
Four was a great year. Here are some of the highlights:
- Started to learn how to play violin (suzuki method)
- Played on a soccer team and tee-ball team for the first time
- Earned up to his green belt in Little Dragons martial arts class
- Started taking a more vested interest in his friendships. Its been great to see how playful and imaginative he can be with the friends he's most comfortable with.
- Learned to identify all the letters of the alphabet
- Absolutely loves being read too and started really understanding and appreciating chapter books. These books included My Father's Dragon Trilogy, How to Train your Dragon series, The BFG, The Wizard of Oz, A Toad for Tuesday, Mr. Popper's Penguins, The Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan, and The Magic Tree House series among others. These chapter books we read before bed and nap time. During the day we still read lots and lots of picture books and poetry.
- Beginning to be able to draw pictures of specific things rather than abstract lines and blotches of color.
- Slept over at Grandma and Grandpa's house for his first sleepover without mom and dad. Also went to summer camp which was the first time he was left with strangers for the day.
- Learned how to ride a pedal bike
- LOVES to put on costumes and play pretend. He went through some phases of wanting to wear the same thing all day every day for a long time:
- wore his bicycle helmet everywhere for several weeks...or was it months?
- the hat phase (grandpa's hat, then the batman hat)
- Wild Kratts (wore the creature power suit vest and gloves everywhere...then just the gloves everywhere...then just one glove).
- super hero capes and masks
- Enjoys playing cars, planes, trains, with construction vehicles in the sand box, building towers with wooden blocks, cutting playdough, cutting out shapes with paper, playing board games, and ALWAYS playing pretend.
- Has become brave around wild animals and loves learning about them
- Loving, empathetic, full of laughter and silliness, full of big important questions and curiosity.
For his birthday breakfast he had french toast with blueberries and Maine maple syrup.
Super Hero Party!
The boys are really into super heroes. They love reading about them, dressing up in capes, and pretending to be super heroes on epic adventures every day. Meo wanted a super hero party, so that's what he got.
We laid out some of their super hero books on the couch in case anyone wanted some quiet snuggle time.
I worked really hard to sew 20 super hero capes and masks to give to the kids so they could all be super heroes together at the party. Robbie was an amazing help and cut out all the masks for me to sew.
We had a Hulk smash station where kids could build walls with cardboard blocks and knock them down with Hulk fists or Thor's hammer.
We set up the pool with some super hero stuff.
We had little Batman, Aquaman and villians hanging out in the sand/water table.
We got some Captain America shields to throw at cups and knock over.
Had some yummy food which included "Thor's Hammers" and "Hulk Punch".
Had balloons because birthday boy requested them.
Had a tattoo station.
Made Pippin a Batman bandanna for the occasion (even though he had to stay in our room for most of the party so he wouldn't get too excited with all the super heroes running around).
But probably the most exciting part was the super hero obstacle course we built.
First you had to run like the flash around the cones.
Climb over the straw pile like Spiderman.
Crawl through the tunnel, then hop across the trail of hoola hoops.
Go down the slide.
Hop over the red laser.
Balance like Spiderman across the logs.
Crawl under the laser booby traps.
And finish by jumping into the pool of balls.
It seemed like everyone was having a lot of fun!
There were cupcakes. Unfortunately I had to rush the buttercream frosting and it came out more like icing, but Meo didn't care. He was just excited that he got a batman cupcake.
And Meo got some really great gifts. He and all of us were very grateful!
Meo got a new batman costume and went around to show everyone at the party with his arms out. It made us chuckle.
Oh, and apparently they caught a snake at some point (thanks for the photos Laren!).
Thank you to all the friends and family who came to Meo's 5th birthday party! We love you all! Meo had the best time!
The party ended after lunch, but Meo still had the rest of his birthday to enjoy! While Linky took a nap, we tried out some of he new board games.
Meo kicked our butt in Monza and was pretty excited about that!
When Link woke up, Meo got to open his presents from us. We gave him some books, some board games, a much anticipated batman figure, a sewing kit, and a hammer and nails activity.
We went for a forest walk so Pippin could get a run in.
One the way back home a really amazing thing happened. I was poking around in the meadow in front of our house collecting some milkweed for the monarch caterpillar we are keeping indoors when we noticed a bird on hopping around. I thought it was weird that he wasn't flying away and when I got close to take a look at him he let me pick him up. I was prepared to take him to the Center or Wildlife to receive care if he was injured, but looking at him he looked fine. All his feathers were in tact, he could spread his wings, but was choosing not to fly. We thought perhaps he flew into a windshield of a car or something and got a little dazed...we still don't really know. Eventually he just flew off my shoulder. But in the meantime both the boys had a chance to hold him, and he ate a little beetle I caught for him. One of Meo's biggest dreams was to hold a wild bird (we had been trying to coax chickadees to feed from our hands), so it was pretty incredible to be able to have this close connection with a tree swallow on his birthday.
Happiest of birthdays sweet Mattimeo. We love you so, so much!
