"4" means you can climb trees...

Gavin was quite excited for his birthday. He knew that once he hit the fab age of "4" he'd be able to climb to the very top of the magnolia tree in our front-yard. He's still working at it, but that's just 'cause he's a "new 4 year old."

We love birthdays in our house. I'm sure I've said this before, but birthdays have always been so special in both my family and Kit's growing up. It doesn't have to be big, but it is still a fabulous day to celebrate only you! We started the day with the birthday banner and streamers hanging and Kit woke Gavin up to go to Krispy Kreme's for a pick-out-whatever-you-want breakfast. Gavin chose an ooey-gooey chocolate sprinkled covered donut and managed to eat half of it. I think most of the fun came from picking out and less from the eating. :) From there he came home and his birthday fun started (actually, I let him lay around in his jammies and watch T.V. while I took care of the chores).

We don't open gifts until everyone can be there, and it is SO hard to wait when you're little and Daddy coming home is such a long time away! My grandma (Grandma B. to my beasties) send a card with a dollar for Gavin to spend all on his own and we needed to complete the task of cake and icecream picking-out, so we decided a birthday trip to Wal-mart was in order. DON'T go to Wal-mart with only a dollar. When the sight of your very own Power Wheels army jeep stares you in the face, a dollar dinosaur, plane shooter, ball, or box of candy just doesn't look quite as good. After convincing Gav his dollar just wouldn't stretch that far, we took a break from the toy section and headed to the bakery. Those ginormous cakes sure look appealing! Gavin was pretty sure he needed one all covered in butterflies and bright colors...it was only $20!! Knowing my children do not really eat birthday cake, we decided on a bright, cute, round, yellow one with large sprinkles, a happy birthday sign and "Gavin" written in green. From there we moved on to the icecream choices. I even thought we'd splurge and get the non-Wal-mart brand. Despite all of the appealing choices, he still chose Neopolitan and called it a great birthday trip. ( A couple days later we went to Dollar Tree and was able to find many more choices to spend his dollar on!)

After picking up Josiah from school and Daddy and Uncle Mack got home, we opened the gifts. It is always such an event in this household. We have to field little hands from opening gifts before the birthday boy (Gunner opened the one gift sack 3 different times during the day, thankfully without Gavin seeing, until I was able to put it up and out of the way). He loved everything he was given. THANK YOU EVERYONE!!! He even got a brand new big-boy bike he had asked for, but by far the hit of the day was the bow and arrow Josiah gave him. Funny how the one of the cheapest things can be the best (although only one of the arrows isn't broken now, boo). Second to that was the cowboy costume his Mimi chose for him. Crazy boy has been wearing it non-stop. But what else should I expect from the boy with the never-ending imagination!

From there we headed to the Boiling Pot for what else-crawfish and shrimp! Gavin's all-time fav food! After devoring a huge plate of fried shrimp po-boys, crawfish tails and fries we headed home (with an enormous to-go box) to attempt to eat cake and icecream. Gavin went to bed one happy "new" 4 year old.


Today he used his Aunt Sydnee's gift- a Build-a-Bear gift card and got the cutest turkey, named Figwort (so named with the aid of Josiah) and a pet Jack Russel terrier for Figwort, named Figger (hmmm, I wonder how he came up with that one?). It was a fun way to spend Josiah's day off of school and a good time to spend with Daddy before he left (to a training school for a few weeks). Thanks Aunt Sydnee, Uncle Dale, Parker and Ellee!!

**Our camera went on the fritz...not many pictures...the rest are on Kit's phone, but it wasn't downloading right...sorry**

Pandemonium begins
The prized bow and arrow


Our Rough 'n' Tough cowboy
(his hair was done, he just messed it up tons putting on and taking off the cowboy hat that came with it)

This one is only to show inquiring minds the baby belly resting on my thighs