Adam is FOUR!

Hard to believe, but the littlest member of our foursome is finally four. He's so cute - he woke up this morning and came and crawled into bed with us, and we said happy birthday Adam, you're four! It took him a minute - he said "today is my birthday? I'm four? Not yet," unlike his sister, who never has a problem on her birthday, remembering that it is in fact her birthday.

The morning was fairly slow going, and then I remembered that we had the Spectrum kids club tickets that we could pick up - it's just a little packet of freebies and coupons, but it made for a nice morning. We rode the train around, went and had a little lunch at Corner Bakery (I let them eat their cookie first) and then all rode the ferris wheel, where at 12:57pm, Adam became officially four years old.

Please enjoy that he insisted on wearing his new pajamas out and about. Ellie brought a shawl and a purse, so that she'd have some place to store a spare necklace and her chapstick. She basically doing a Gigi impression.

As usual, I made him a birthday cake. Friday afternoon I attempted to make a cake with Oreo bits crushed in, but of course, didn't really follow the recipe to begin with, and then substituted applesauce for eggs since we have a little friend with an egg allergy. Yeah. It was an ultimate cake fail. It was too moist, and would have been fine and delicious if we were just scooping it out of the pan, but I was trying to cut it and stack it into a trash truck for Adam. I ended up salvaging an egg-free piece, but tossing the rest and making a straight yellow cake last night around 9:30pm.

I'm not saying it's not a cake fail, but I'm saying it's better than what it could have been. Please enjoy Mario, Luigi and Yoshi driving the trash truck.

We also ended up just ordering pizza. Adam is such a pain about eating - I'd been joking that if I wanted to make a dinner that he'd be sure to eat, it'd be peanut butter sandwiches, yogurt pops, and chicken nuggets for everyone. As it was, he only ate four bites of cheese pizza because I chased him down, but hopefully, as it's been all this past year, he won't starve. (As a funny programming note, Tim left to get pizza wearing his house slippers... but not carrying his wallet.)

It was just a fun, relaxed night. We had our families as usual, and our best friend-family (framily) so it was easy and fun to hang out. Adam got a razor scooter for his birthday, so our friends brought scooters for the kids, and we turned the back patio into a drag race arena. It was actually funny - our kids' helmets were at my parents house, so until Gigi and Grizz arrived, they were riding without helmets, and Ellie said to her friends "when Poppy gets here, he's going to tell us to be careful and wear helmets" and lo, the second Poppy walked outside and saw what was going on, he observed that they should all slow down and put on their helmets. He's concerned about safety, what can he say?

Good news, Adam got a new helmet from Uncle Jake for his birthday! Bad news, was not that into trying it on.

He also got tons of trucks and a big (loud!) crane, and his favorite bug game

All of the little ladies had a good time, playing dress up and playing around. Adam and Judd can be a tough twosome to play with, so thankfully the girls also let Thomas tag along with all of their antics.

And of course, we ended with a good dance party. Earlier in the night, Whitney had asked me if we were going to have a dance party, and I assured her, it's always a dance party if it's a party at our house. Tim and I felt very lucky when we were done tucking everyone in and cleaning everything up. Our kids are amazing and sweet and funny and fun, and getting better with every day. Adam can be impossible and a terrible listener, but he's so snuggly and goofy, and the older he gets, the more we enjoy having actual conversations with him, and listening to him sing in the car and be a funny little person. And we're fortunate to have our families nearby to spend time with him and us every week, and our framily who help keep us sane. The evening was loud and a bit chaotic, but ultimately a pretty relaxed, fun time with some of our very favorite people.

And our favorite little four year old, of course. We're so fortunate to be our little family of four.