Shepard's 4th Birthday!

On Wednesday, my baby turned four! It's hard to believe four entire years have passed since this little guy has come into our lives. Though I really can't remember a time without him. He brings so much laughter and joy to our family with his silliness and never-ending energy. 

His birthday itself didn't turn out to be super exciting, but I think he was okay with that. I had an unexpected emergency medical procedure done last Saturday that pretty much rendered me useless this entire week. It was very frustrating to want to do so many things and not be able to accomplish practically anything. :( At any rate, I did make a special chocolate peanut butter banana bread for his breakfast, which he thoroughly enjoyed. And then he was off to school with his special birthday treat of homemade mini donuts. He really wanted to bring pancakes, but I wasn't sure how that would work. :)

I think Caden was more excited about Shepard's birthday then he was. Caden was bouncing off the walls and being incredibly obnoxious, trying to get Shepard to open all his presents first thing in the morning. I "let him" (couldn't stop him) open his presents from Caden which were a big tractor sticker book and a game for his 2DS called Olaf's Quest. He then spent pretty much the entire afternoon playing while I was napping/resting and Greg was working. Then later in the afternoon I recruited his help to make brownies and pizza dough. He definitely still loves to help bake!

After getting Caden, Shepard was able to open the rest of his gifts. This was a super bouncy ball that Caden also picked out.

For awhile there I was having a hard time coming up with gift ideas for Shepard since I really didn't want to just get a bunch of toys for the sake of buying something. So I asked Greg for help and he picked out this bat and a matching glove and ball. Shepard loved it, but was really disappointed we couldn't go outside and play with it yet in the below zero weather.

I gave Shepard a cookbook and his own recipe box. I figured since it's the only thing I really have in common with either of my kids I better nurture that interest before it disappears!

He also got an activity watch that is supposed to promote more physical activity. Though I'm not sure why he needs it when he spends every minute of the day bouncing back and forth between the couches and doing flips and somersaults everywhere he goes. Caden, being the technology OBSESSED kid that he is, had a hard time letting this toy get out of his sight.

Shepard requested pepperoni pizza for his birthday dinner. Of course he refused to take a nice picture with it. Apparently four is the age you stop wanting your picture taken because pretty much every slightly posed shot I tried to get he'd cover his face or run away.

After dinner they went back to the tub of kinetic sand. I was excited about this gift since Shepard points it out every time we go to Joann's or Walmart and was sure it was something he'd actually like. He said it's his favorite present, so I was happy!

And finally time for his birthday brownies! Shepard doesn't particularly like cake, so I talked him into something different for his real birthday and his party this weekend. Makes my life a lot easier!!

One happy four year old! He's been carrying this candle around for a week telling me how fun it is to look at. He was very excited to finally use it. :)

Side note - he's wearing underwear! It took four years, but he's finally on his way to being potty trained. He won't willingly go on his own, but he does wear underwear most of the time and once he starts dancing around uncontrollably we physically set him on the potty chair and he'll go right away. So hopefully that means he'll start going on his own free will sooner rather than later and we can finally be done with diapers!

Anyway, it turned out to be a very simple, but I think good birthday for him. I had to go to the doctor yesterday, so we tried to make it kind of a continued birthday celebration and took him out to lunch, just the three of us. That kind of made up for what I wasn't able to do on Wednesday. Now we're just looking forward to his family party on Sunday! More photos on that to come. :)