Birthday Boy!

I can't believe this guy is FOUR!

Like last year, we had another two-part birthday for Iain. Or, I should say, we tried to...

The morning after my cousin's wedding in Tennessee, we gathered everyone at the hotel pool for a little party-time fun. We had planned to get doughnuts and lollypops (birthday boy's request), but that morning, poor Iain took a nasty tumble in the parking lot, cut up his nose and forehead, and worked himself up until his stomach, shall we say, wouldn't have handled the sweets very well. So we promised him doughnuts on his real birthday and had a treatless party.

After some group shots of all the cousins (my generation and down),

we did our first party activity: decorating hats.

If you know Iain, you know he loves his hats. As witness:

And then it was on to present opening:

And swimming (in the freezing cold water):

Iain loves his cousins. Most of them aren't really even his cousins (they are mine, which makes them his...second cousins? First cousins once removed?), but many of them are so close to his age that they are, for all practical purposes, his cousins. He loves playing with them, so having them at his fourth birthday was a very special thing.

On the real birthday (about a week later), Iain was sick. The poor little guy. He had a nasty fever, vicious cough, and a horrible wheezing sound coming from his lungs. So he and I spent a good bit of his birthday afternoon at urgent care. Not fun. We did get him doughnuts that morning, but he didn't want them until much later. And when he did eat them, it was a pitiful sight.

He did open his present from Grammy and Papa on his real birthday, and played with it a little. But besides that and the smoothie he got from McDonald's on our way home from urgent care (and yes, I got myself a big soda - it was a long few days!), the day was a bummer.

Now he is four. And here is what he says:

Favorite thing to do: play baseball. "My next favorite thing to do is play trumpet."

Favorite food: cheetos

Favorite color: "yellow, orange, blue and red. And black."

When I grow up, I want to be: "I wanna be...a fireman!"

Iain, these days you like to spend your time making music, reading, drawing, watching movies (you could do this all day long if I let you!), jumping on the "trumpalump," and playing trains. You are so much more independent than you were just last year. You get yourself dressed. You brush your own teeth in the morning. You drink from a cup with no lid. You can get something from the basement for me if I need you to. You can write your name and several other letters. You go outside to play.

You're such a good big brother to Cory. You and he play so well together, most of the time. You say your favorite thing to do with him is play music. You let him play with your pirate ships and you make complicated train track towns with him. You bring him his bear when he's sad, and you call me when he gets hurt. You tell me that when the baby sister is old enough, you will play hopscotch with her. :) You love to wrestle with Daddy, or have him read you books.

You're a smart boy! You love learning and right now, you're fascinated with volcanoes and planets. And you love music, pirates, and yes, you still love Bunny.

Happy birthday, Iain! We love you!

(Iain's other birthday posts: zero, one, another one, two, three, another three)