A Time to Treasure: Fabulous FOUR!!

Every year I tell myself, "Keep it simple, Jacki."

Every year I can't seem to do it.

I LOVE using birthdays as an opportunity to show our kids - through celebrating - how glad we are that they are in our lives.

Joshy turning FOUR was no exception.

So try as I did to keep it simple, we still ended up with three celebrations

...and I'm not sad about it at all :)

January 2nd

Because Josh's birthday is so close to Christmas, we don't ever throw him his party that day. However, to leave the day empty just wouldn't be right....especially now that his big sister can read a calendar and delights in giving countdowns to big special days. So we played lego and went sledding and threw him a little family party.

Ellie decided it should be a 'dress-up' party...so this is how she dressed:

Fancy, of course.

Josh, however, heard 'dress-up' and came to dinner looking like this:

Dressed like a puppy. :)
This puppy got to choose our meal, and chose hotdogs, french fries, and veggies (this kid loves his veggies!!! Fills my heart with joy! :)

Micah came dressed up as...himself.

We actually don't do gifts for our kids birthdays (more on this later), but decided that since it was so long until we were going to take Josh on his birthday date, he should have something little to open on his special day.

So we got him a gun.

Rob likes it too.

Josh didn't mind that his mom is no cake decorator.
It was chocolate, and that's all that really matters.

We love this boy. This year I'm realizing how great it is that he was born 2 days overdue.
Had he been born 2 days earlier, he would be going to school this fall....and I'd miss out on a whole extra year of hilarious views on God and the world, super sweet encouragements, and some of the best hugs ever.

The Date

So like I was saying, we don't really get our kids gifts for their birthdays anymore: we create memories instead. So about a week after Josh's birthday we took him on his much-anticipated birthday date, just Rob, myself and him...

To the MUSEUM.
He was so totally excited. He grabbed a 'map' (wasn't really) and became our self-designated tour guide, following the arrows on the carpet with great gusto, leading us through the museum, and stopping only for displays that were exceptionally interesting.

Like the buffalo:

The butterflies (at this point he wished Ellie were along):

The fossils:

And the DINOSAURS!

I forced him to stop and look at this one, because I think it's cool:

Then we reached...the BOAT.
Joshy morphed when we got into that boat.
Not only was he then our tour guide, but also became 'Captain Jack Sparrow' (for the record, he has no clue who that is) and stayed in character for the remainder of the museum.

We've actually never been through a museum (led by a marching, four-year-old pirate) so quickly.

So we went downstairs and thought we'd try out the science centre, not totally sure if Josh would be old enough to enjoy it.

He was old enough.
So many things there seemed as though they were made for a kid wired just like him.

Time for dinner! Rob and I chose the Salisbury House, not so much for the food, but for the fact that it sits on a bridge over top a river. Totally a Josh thing. (However, there are no parking lots on this bridge so it was one coooooooold walk to the door!!)

Totally blurry picture, but it captures the essence of the meal. We actually got there 5 minutes before closing, and thankfully had a compassionate waitress who didn't want to wreck a four-year-old's special birthday meal, and let us stay. So we had the restaurant pretty much to ourselves.

What did Josh choose? Hotdogs (again). Gourmet in 4 year-old land! :)

Wanting to do one last special thing, and knowing Josh's love language is SUGAR, we stopped at a donut joint for dessert.

One terrific date with one terrific kid!!

The Party

Originally Josh decided he'd like a birthday party with the theme, "Bulldozers at the zoo." HA! Try making a cake of that!! Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Balfour (who sent him some pirate lego as a gift) he changed his theme to PIRATES.
Friendly pirates, of course.

Here's him and Ellie decorating a pirate poster for the wall, exuberant about the party to come:

Josh's birthday party day prayer at breakfast: "Dear Jesus, I pray we have the greatest day, and that all the kids will have lovely times and the greatest journeys. Amen."

I could not have said it better. :)

Very thankful for a dear friend for providing the (wonderfully done) cake!

The finished wall masterpiece:

Party time! I told Josh he could invite four friends (plus cousins) since he was turning four. He chose William, Emily, Maybeth, and Abigail...all siblings from one family, all of them like brother and sisters to him.