Alton's Fourth Birthday

I already mentioned here on the blog that the day before my cousin Louise came to town was Alton's birthday! This year he was fortunate to have his birthday fall on a Saturday, but boy, was it a busy day. Once each year, his preschool class meets on a weekend morning instead of during the week, to give parents who might be unable to get away from work the opportunity to explore the classroom with their little one. Awesome! However, Alton's birthday happened to fall on this weekend school day. Since a birthday celebration at school involves making a special crown and sitting in a special chair while everyone counts off your age in years, we knew that Alton would not want to miss out on this celebrity treatment and skip Saturday School. So after a whirlwind morning at school with Daddy by his side, Alton came home for a quick nap before the rest of the day's festivities began.
After he woke up, it was time to put on his bday finery. I knitted him a vest over Christmas in a blue-grey yarn with argyles across the front, and he was proudly sporting it to match his birthday theme. We decided that this year, since he had school in the morning and the day would be quite fast-paced, we'd do a very small party and keep everything very simple. The party decorations reflected his favorite colors--blue and green--and we invited party guests to wear those colors, too. One friend of mine even said that she snuck out to the store to buy her daughter a new blue t-shirt for the party!

For the guests' goody bags, we arranged a buffet of candy treats in Alton's favorite colors, and even spelled out his name in gummy letters. Each child was invited to pick out his or her favorites from the table. (We had M&Ms and jelly beans in blue/green, green gummy frogs, blue gummy sharks, and licorice in blue raspberry and green apple flavors. Fun!)

Andy had fun stringing the ceiling with blue and green crepe streamers and shiny balloons, then laid on the ground to snap his handiwork with a (borrowed) fisheye camera lens.

When I stopped by the store earlier that morning to buy some balloons, the employee at the counter offered to give me a big bunch of red balloons for the party for free, because they were from another customer's canceled order. Don't mind if I do.

Before his little friends arrived, Alton opened his special gift from Mommy and Daddy. It's a LeapPad handheld tablet for games. He was so excited, and he didn't even know what it was!

After a Skype session on the computer with Nonna, Papa, and Uncle KC, he opened his gifts from them: LeapPad accessories! Here he is on the chair playing the Toy Story game from Uncle KC next to the carrying case from Nonna and Papa.

His friends arrived while he was still playing, and the kids immediately formed a crowd around the cool new toy. Little did Alton know that Uncle Zach and Auntie Karen had brought along another new game as his birthday gift!

After awhile, we put it away and got them interested in other things. Cousin *A looks like she's having fun!

Fun hats and snacks make for a great party!

Mr Four-Year-Old boy donned the paper crown that he made at school that morning to blow out his candles.

They converged again at present time!!!! He immediately wants me to open a package of two Transformers.

Nature Boy is going to love these binoculars on our bike excursions; he insisted on bringing them along when we went to the park a few days later.

There was one toy I had never seen before: HexBugs. Tiny batteries inside a bristly silicone "bug" make it vibrate to move forward. If you set up a little ramp/arena for him, he will vibrate around and bounce off of walls and obstacles to find his way around. They could watch for hours!

Everyone had lots of fun and the kids all stayed up way too late. But you're only four once, right? The next morning, Alton continued to play with each of his new toys in turn. One of the first items on his to-do list was to open the wooden race car kit from Grammy and Grandpa and begin painting his machine. He was so determined that his car should look exactly like the picture on the box, Andy even taped off sections of the car when Alton started painting, so that the multicolored stripes would have crisp, straight edges!

Wow, what a great time. Cousin Louise was just flying in to the airport the day after his party, and she brought along another cool gift: a set of dinosaur magnets, with a guide to learn all of their multi-syllable names! I will be an expert the next time you see me.
Thank you to all of our friends and family for the well-wishes on our little man's big day. We are thankful that we have so many near and far who want to celebrate with us.