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. 

One happy pirate!

I was so thankful Rob took over the treasure hunt, and even made a treasure map, burnt edges and water marks included.

Did I mention he's really good at pirate lingo?

Cake time!

Josh received some stellar dress-up clothes as gifts. 

Micah didn't want to be left out of the dressing-up fun:

Even Nana was a sport, letting me decorate her face. 

All in all I think that was the funnest (and loudest) party we've ever had!

We love you to pieces, four year old Josh!

One very quiet Quiet Time...

Yesterday after one very quiet Quiet Time, I saw this little face smiling at me through the window of the toy room door:

I went and had a good belly laugh privately and then put on my best stern face and went downstairs. Josh was hiding behind the couch. He has a decent conscience.

When he popped his head up all he had to say was,

"Yeah but Mommy...I wanted to be a lion!"

(Note: It was washable.)

(One more note: He did it again today.)

Poetry

Finally! I figured out a way to get a video on my blog! In celebration of this accomplishment, here's a video that makes me giggle every time I watch it (but I'm his mom): Josh, reciting a poem with a severely plugged up nose.

I think when God sent us Josh, He knew we needed someone to add laughter to our house.

And laughter is exactly what Josh gives us.

Lately Josh has particularly enjoyed praying with great gusto and expression.

Before any meal, him and Ellie usually have a quick bicker over who will pray first. Ellie's prayers are most often poetic, and she attempts to rhyme her sentences and include words like 'sun' and 'flower' and 'heart'.

Josh's sound a little more like this:

"Thank you LORD that there's a PARTY in my TUMMY! And thank you for cinnamon bagels and baNAAAANAAAA. And thank you LORD that we're GOOD at not ARGURING (arguing) and thank you LORD that we're GREAT FRIENDS. Aaaaymen."

or how about

"Dear Jesus. Help me to have a gooood BULLDOZER. But not real. And thank you that I LOVE BULLDOZERS. Aaaaymen."

or maybe

"Dear God. Thank you that I will grow, and please help me to grow into a SINEY (shiny) armour! Aaaaaymen."

Recently my friend Elleah shared that her daughter Kiera (age 3) had asked Jesus into her heart. I was impacted as Elleah shared about how much prayer she had put into her daughter's decision, and was strongly impressed that I began doing the same for Josh (Ellie also asked Jesus into her heart at age 3 which you can read about here).

I could tell that since Christmas his understanding of things and life and Jesus had 'matured' (if you can call it that for a preschooler) and one day soon he'd get it. Two times recently, for instance, when I've been standing in line with Josh to get communion at our church, he's looked up at me spontaneously and whispered, "I forgive you that I disobeyed you."...and it's like something in his heart knows that as we're about to remember Jesus dying on the cross for our brokenness, we need to make things right with others.

As though something in his heart was telling him that he needs a Saviour, too.

Well this week another friend shared that her daughter had asked Jesus into her heart. I told Ellie one morning at breakfast (because I knew she'd be excited) and explained to Josh that whenever one person asks Jesus to be the King of their life, the angels in heaven have a party. I finished by saying, "Josh, if you ever feel ready to do that, you just let me know, okay?"

And was about to go butter the bagels when  I heard,

"Okay. I'm ready!"

And just like that, he (enthusiastically) invited Jesus to be the King in his little heart.

And if I am very honest half of me thought, "Josh has no clue what he just did."

Which is probably partly true.

The other half of me prayed, "LORD JESUS...grow that little seed into a tree with

deep deep roots of faith in the One and Only Living God!"

All of us begin somewhere.

And so the angels celebrated. Again! And one day we'll be there, celebrating too,

with a party of proportions our minds can't even comprehend.

In the meantime, we have little gifts of laughter sent from heaven, sometimes in the form of Josh. I'll leave you with a few more of my favourite recent Josh moments:

After getting dressed for the day it's not uncommon for Josh to say something like, "This is my COOL DUDE shirt. Now I look BANKASTIC! (fantastic)"

And because I know Josh thinks 'cool dudes' are where it's at, sometimes I'll come into his room at bedtime and say something like, "Hey, Cool Dude."

And then he says,

"I'm not a coool duuuude. I'm just Joshy. I don't love cool dudes. I just love trains, and cars, and Bob de Builder."

And I ask, "So, what do you think you might be when you grow up, if you love those things?"

Josh (without hesitating): "A SINEY (shiny) ARMOUR!"

Me: "Ooooh. That sounds BRAVE!"

Josh: "And I will KILL the bad guys! (insert something like sword sound effects)"

Me: "Wow! That sounds REALLY brave!"

Josh: "Actually....I won't be a siny armour. I will be...

I will be....

I will be...

A WORM!"

Me: "A WORM!?"

Josh: "A worm! And I will WIGGLE IN DA MUD!"

(the very next morning he declared he would be a dinosaur...but that he wouldn't eat me.)

How about this conversation in the doctor's office:

Josh: "Can I sit in that chair?" (secretary's chair)

Me: "Only if you work here!"

Josh: "Is it for girls?"

Me: "Usually."

Josh: "I'm a girl!"

Me: "Uh...actually you're a boy."

Josh: "I AM a girl!"

Me: "Josh, you're a boy. You love dinosaurs and trains."

Josh: "I'm a GIRL. I love ballerinas."

Me: "Then show me your ballet dancing."

And he did. Right there in the doctor's waiting room. I wasn't the only one laughing. :)

And finally, a friend's dear, elderly mother recently passed away. For the sake of privacy we'll call our friend "Bob."

Rob told Josh to come upstairs one morning and eat breakfast and pray for Uncle Bob because his mommy had died. Josh came upstairs with a look of (mock) shock on his face and said, "MOMMY! Uncle Bob DIED!"

We all chuckled and Rob corrected Josh, "No, his MOMMY died."

Josh looked at me, even more shocked,  pointed, and said,

"Mommy YOU died!"

When we had finally managed to explain to you what had really happened, you prayed,

"Dear Jesus. Help Uncle Bob's mommy not to be dead on the cross. Amen."

Josh, thanks for the hilarity.

God has made you great at putting smiles (as big as your own) on our faces.

I pray that as Jesus becomes really real to you,

your own joy would increase by thousands and millions. 

Because that's what Jesus tends to do to people.