Max's Birthday

Let me introduce you to Max. He woke up one day and said, "My name is Max!" Max demanded that we call him Max and whenever we called him something else he stomped his foot at us. When we skyped Spencer who just turned 2... Max said, "My name is Max". After talking for a while on Skype we told Spencer good-bye and he waved bye and said, "bye Max."

As long as we're on the subject of names, Kaden has this hat that he wears to preschool. He calls it his HUNTING HAT. He wears it most days to keep his ears warm, but it cracks his teacher up every day. She calls Kaden Elmer (as in Elmer Fudd). One day she called him that all day long until finally he started responding to Elmer. I think in this picture he actually looks like an Elmer.

Maybe he's having an identity crisis.

On January 12th little Max/Elmer/Kaden turned 4. Last year we went to Chuck E Cheese to celebrate his birthday and I think this year he thought that's what you're supposed to do to celebrate birthdays. Since Jeff was out of town for the week and we weren't doing any celebrating on his actual birthday I took Kaden and his best buddy, JP Jones to Chuck E Cheese. As soon as we walked in Kaden said, "Now I am 4!"
Except for one little family we had the whole place to ourselves. I gave the boys a few tokens and they had a blast playing the big, tough games-- they couldn't reach any of the pedals or see over the steering wheels, but they looked manly.

Kaden acts like a rock star a lot of the time. It's probably a combination of being the only boy and being the youngest but he is so yummy to me. He is such a cool-dude-acting kid but at the same time he is so tender. Sometime during the night he climbs into bed with us and usually snuggles deep into my back. In the morning when I ask him why he wakes me up like that he says, "because you're warm and I like to snuggle with you." It's hard to resist but it does making sleeping through the night a non occurrence.

Kaden also loves to kiss. I told him he could only kiss his mommy a lot. He couldn't understand why and asked, "but why mom? I am a kissing boy." We had better keep an eye on him.

On Friday we had a boy party with 4 little preschool friends over... Brayden, Quinn, James and JP. It was a sports themed party. I tried to be the oh-so-clever mom with some games and cutesy things to go a long with our theme, but these boys were so glad to be together in a non structured way that they just wanted to PLAY. They had the best time.

It's been a long time since I made a birthday cake but I couldn't resist a super easy baseball cake... from scratch. Jeff thought it tasted like a donut. Just goes to show you that cakes made from scratch are a rarity in many households, but my they are so much yummier than those darn boxes. YUM!

Kaden with all of the treasures. He got 2 remote control cars from friends, a baseball pitcher thing, a baseball mitt a marshmallow bow and arrow shooter, and a matching game. Such a big, cute, happy boy.

Kaden takes good direction from his bossy sisters. I love it when he snuggles with them while they read to him. I love it when he runs down the hall and jumps into Daddy's arms when he's walking in the front door. I love it when he's being a bit irreverent at church and I can pick him up and tickle his tummy and face and he becomes dead weight on my lap. I love it when Kaden is describing something with enthusiasm and says with his total boy voice, "It's awesome!" He calls his Sunday hair his "handsome hair." or his regular tennis shoes, his "awesome shoes." He refuses to eat with anything but the blue bowl or blue plate or Spiderman spoon. He is a total stud! and our family is so blessed to have him.

Happy Birthday Boy!