Collin-ardo turns five!

My sweet boy, who it seems like was our newborn months ago, somehow turned five last month.  On his last night as a four-year-old, we were cuddling on his bed discussing highs and lows of the day.  He asked me, "isn't your high that I'm going to be five tomorrow?"  And with tears running down my face I told him no, that it was going too fast.  I try to remember that when most nights at dinner, I have him leaning against me and Maya climbing in my lap, and I want just a few inches of personal space - that I should enjoy this "too loved" stage because I'll blink and they'll be too independent!

This year from four to five has been so fun to watch Collin grow.  He's much more confident, a bit less shy, and remains a sweet boy unless he's pretending to be a villain.  He started to learn to swim and read, he discovered a love of coloring, he climbs areas of the playground that used to scare him, he loves going to school each day and always asks to stay a bit longer when I come to pick him up.  He loves his action figures, jumping on the trampoline, and reading.  

For his fifth birthday, we had some sweet family friends over, had make-your-own pizza and green cupcakes, and luckily got the prettiest day in January to burn energy outside on bounce houses.  I learned that make your own pizzas sounded cute, but was much more effort than it was worth, so I spent almost all of the party inside.  

I did grab my camera for the birthday song - 

And for the silly string battle -

Just because it's your birthday doesn't mean you're exempt from silly string to the face.

Do you see the bounce houses?  I went on them once.  They came to get them earlier than we expected on Saturday afternoon, and so this is the main documentation of the backyard fun.  Also, I don't think I'll do a 10:30am birthday party at our house again, or if I do, I'll take the day off beforehand.  We were up super late getting ready, and then I failed to pick up dog poop in our backyard, which was less than ideal when we had 25 people running through the grass!

Sweet Lorenzo didn't know how to defend himself, so he was the perfect target!

Grammy was caught up in the silly string battle . . . and Maya transferred dog poop she stepped in to Grammy's pants when she picked her up, so she learned not to wear nice clothes to our house!

Right before Maya's nap and Collin's rest time, we slid with Nico and Lorenzo.  Maya thought it was a scream!

Silly boys - Collin climbing up the rail, Lorenzo walking down the slide -

Happy, ninja-turtle-loving, birthday boy!

He was the self-proclaimed king of the slide!  Our brave five year old - definitely wouldn't have done this a year or two ago!

Lorenzo and Nico -

He and I raced on the obstacle course.  I missed a stake in the ground and face planted on the way to the obstacle course start . . . and then laughed at myself so hard that he smoked me on the course, having a 2 minute head start!

This is as "pinterest-y" as we got - I thought we'd get a lot more decorated, but Cas came home from the store at 10:35, so we got two balloons wrapped and then handed the rest of the green balloons to friends to decorate for us!

A few days after his birthday, we conducted our annual birthday interview:
1.  What makes you happy?  watching movies, playing with fighting men, coloring
2.  What is your favorite animal?  wolves
3.  What is your favorite toy?  Action figure - specifically, a transformer villain
4.  What is your favorite thing to eat?  peanut butter & jelly
5.  What is your favorite thing to drink?  Gatorade [which he only gets when he has a stomach bug, and coincidentally, complains often of stomach aches with the follow-up "may I have some Gatorade?"]
6.  What is your favorite thing to do?  jump on the trampoline
7.  What is your favorite movie?  Hercules
8.  What is your favorite game?  Candyland
9.  What are you really good at doing?  Building with legos, coloring in coloring books
10.  What is your favorite part of being a big brother?  getting hugs from Maya every morning
11.  What is your favorite color?  turquoise and green
12.  What is your favorite song?  the Joseph song from the Joseph movie
13.  Who is your best friend?  Cooper G. [at school]
14.  What do you and your mommy do together?  Play games, go grocery shopping, cuddle, color
15.  What do you and your daddy do together?  Cuddle, watch tv, sword fight with foam swords, tumble and wrestle
16.  What is your favorite sport?  Football - New York Giants
17.  Where is your favorite place to go?  movie theater, aquarium, WonderWild
18.  What is your favorite book?  The Big Orange Splot
19.  What is your favorite restaurant?  Ruggles Green and Chick fil A [unchanged from last year]
20.  What did you do on your birthday? Had friends over, jumped on the bounce houses and trampoline, ate pizza, watched The Incredibles
21.  What do you want to be when you grow up?  A taster of only desserts 
22.  What do you know about God and Jesus?  They can do whatever they want.  They created everything.  Jesus died on the cross to forgive our sins.

What a joy it has been to parent this boy for the last five years!

Oh wonderful Collin, we could not love you more.  You are just what we always wanted!!

Christmas Eve to New Year's Day

My grandma's birthday falls on Christmas Eve, so we all headed over there for lunch to celebrate - 

And eat cookie cake!

Maya posing with the birthday girl -

My beautiful 89-year-old with two of her great grandchildren -

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve celebration with Cas' family, and my kids stayed awake the latest I think either of them has ever been up - or certainly Maya's latest bedtime - 10:30pm!  So Christmas morning, Maya was up bright and early, but Collin finally got out of bed at 9am, after Cas and I were pacing.  He was surprised to see Santa's footprints and the gift he requested - the beast from Beauty and the Beast.

But wait, there were more footprints leading to the backyard.  Collin "acted like Batman and solved the mystery."

The footprints stopped on the driveway, but the note pointed behind the pool -

Collin apparently asked Santa for both the beast and April O'Neal, a ninja turtle character.  So Collin's response to our question of what could the footprints be leading to was "maybe it's April O'Neal!"

It wasn't April, instead it was a trampoline!  

Jumping - and falling - away!

I got in on the action in my robe, flipping around.  A few days later I was on the trampoline doing all kinds of jumps and flips, remnants of my gymnastics days (though significantly less impressive than my tricks when I was eleven).   And then I jumped over Collin, jerked mid-air to make it seem scarier to Collin . . . and cricked my neck.  I had to get straight off the trampoline and straight for the heating pad.  Pathetic!

Who was more excited about the trampoline, the kids or the mommy?

Posing on the Christmas present -

Maya loves to jump, and has learned the word "jump outside" to let us know it's trampoline time!

A few days after Christmas, Uncle Tony, Aunt Elida, Nico and Lorenzo came over.  Maya loves her cousins, especially Lorenzo who is at the perfect hugging level!

Lorenzo doesn't have the same love of hugging that Maya does!

We had a wild and crazy New Year's Eve - we started the morning at library story hour and ended the night with s'mores.

Cas passed on the s'mores, but Collin and I went to town!

On New Year's day, we had four of our couple friends and their kids over for lunch.  It was cold and rainy from Christmas to New Year's, and so it was nice to let the kids burn energy together and the grown-ups have encouraging conversations.  Six years ago there were just five couples - and on New Year's Day there were 10 adults and 13 kids, all five and under!

Play dates in December: Posing at the Park and Sprinkles up the Nose

In early December, Cas and some of his friends spent the night at our family farm and we headed to Grammy and Brownie's.  Saturday morning, we met my best friend Amber and her three kids at a park near my parents' home.  Maya was posing away for the camera - 

The kids played hide and seek, freeze tag, climbed trees, but spent very little time on the actual playground equipment.  I think they spent more time walking, crawling and jumping along this light pole that had yet to be placed upright than they did on the slides, bridges and climbing structures of the park!

A week later, we met my friend Kelly at the Children's Museum.  I stayed upstairs in the tot spot with Kelly, Katelyn and Maya, while my mom spent the morning with Collin.  Concentrating while coloring -

And intensely pedaling a bike, as the faster the wheels turned, the more light bulbs illuminated.

At dinner with Amber and Kelly on Thursday night, we learned that all three of us had Saturday morning free.  So I volunteered my parents' house to make gingerbread houses.  Friday night after my mom went to a birthday party, she hit Walmart to pick up supplies for the party I had volunteered her to host - she's the best!

Part of the reason we needed to get together was that Kelly had made the girls matching monogrammed shirts and skirts, and we couldn't pass up the opportunity for a group photo.  Before the icing and sprinkles came out, we got the girls - Esmae (4), Maya (19 months), Katelyn (2.5 years) to pose for us -

Collin hopped in to the shot on the front porch swing -

 And then we kicked Collin out and the moms with their daughters smiled for the cameras -

Once the photos were over, the girls all switched to casual Christmas shirts (all of my kids' holiday gear comes from Amber or Kelly) and we decorated sugar cookies -

Esmae and Katelyn debated decorating over just eating the decorations!

Collin's sprinkles were thicker than the cookie!  Not sure how he managed to get sprinkles up his nose when he was supposed to be decorating and not eating -

Very proud of his loaded up cookies -

Feeling sick to our stomachs from the cookies, we moved into tree decoration mode, putting green icing on ice cream cones and then adding sprinkes.  Holden and Collin posing with their creations - 

After the decorating was complete, we tried to balance out the sugar with some pizza and then herded everyone outside to burn energy.  It was so great to watch them play together and such a joy that we're building two generations of friendships!