Caeden's FOURTH Birthday!

Our little man turned FOUR YEARS OLD last week, and we did lots of things to let him know how special he is to us!!  About 2 weeks before his birthday, he started asking every day (sometimes multiple times a day) when it was.  So we made the infamous paper chain to hang up.  Towards the end, there was a RED paper link...he knew that this was the day he was having his fire truck birthday party!  A few days later on the chain, was a BLUE STRIPED paper link...he knew that this was the day he was actually turning four years old! So, on Monday, August 5th, he knew that was his actual birthday!

We wanted to do lots of things to make his day special!  So the night before, while he was sleeping, we decorated his room with streamers, balloons, and other decorations!  We also wrote on his bathroom mirror with dry erase marker - so his morning was full of surprises!  He slept through all the decorating, and when he woke up, he came out and was so excited!  He said, "There's lines connected all in my room!!"  He was talking about how we had TP'd his room with streamers!  It was so great!

DECORATING THE NIGHT BEFORE:

BIRTHDAY MORNING!!

FINDING THE DECORATIONS!

After playing with the streamers and balloons for awhile, we headed to get doughnuts - this is something we started doing when he was two years old - getting donuts on his birthday!  We brought them home, put candles in his doughnut and let him blow them out!

We had also decorated our minivan the night before!  He was so excited for people to honk for his birthday on the way to Krispy Kreme.  Unfortunately we only got one honk - we must have lots of fuddy-duddies in Bentonville!  But I will say we got several more later in the day when we went out.  He got so excited every time someone honked for him!

We spent the rest of the morning just playing and hanging out together.  Daddy & I put our to-do lists aside (along with our computers and phones) so we could give Caeden lots of attention!  We did his "four year old interview" that morning and got lots of fun/cute answers!

Then since he was born at 2:31pm, we sat with him right before nap, and told him about when he was born - showing him lots of pictures of him as a newborn.  He smiled so big the whole time, and kept asking lots of questions!  I think it's funny to him that he used to be a baby.  He loved hearing all the stories we had though!

After naptime, he got to pick what we were going to do for dinner.  He said, "I want to go to the park to eat dinner!  But first let's get the kind of chicken nuggets from Chicken-fil-a and then take them to the park to eat!"  So, that's what we did!  A picnic at the park for his birthday!  And boy was it a scorcher outside!

Once we got home, Caeden and Daddy filled up some water balloons for his bath.  We had never done this before, but since it was his birthday, we thought it would be fitting!  I tried to get pictures, but he had popped every balloon within 90 seconds!

We then said prayers, read a book, and put our big boy to bed.  It was truly a special day for him, and us.  We definitely don't take for granted each day we get with our kids - especially when we get to celebrate another year!  It makes me sick at my stomach to think of how old he's getting, because I just want him to stay little.  But I'm also thankful to be able to see him grow!  We love our little man so much, and will cherish this next year with him!!