My Baby Turned 4

My first born is a 4 year old!!!  How did that happen?!  One minute I am rocking him to sleep and this week I am not aloud to kiss him on the lips any more, I am beside myself!!  How emotional does it make me to have my boy turn 4?  Here is a little taste..
DJ has been asking for exactly one year (since the day after his 3rd birthday party) for a dragon cake "when he turns this many," picture 4 chubby little sticky fingers held high in the air.  The movie "How to Train Your Dragon" came out right around his 3rd birthday last year and it was his first movie that he saw at a movie theater.  J took him for a little treat and DJ was so worried it would be too loud we sent him with a set of earphones, that he put on before the theater was even dimmed and left on the entire movie.  DJ was also too little to keep the seat down on his own, so J had to hold it down, I happen to know my husband and I know he sat through that whole movie, holding DJ's seat down, grinning ear to ear and overflowing with love for this sweet boy...

Long story longer, we HAD to have a how to train your dragon birthday this year.  I got online and found some cute favors and Viking birthday hats, not as much as I usually do for birthdays but I really thought I could find quite a bit at Wal-mart or the dollar store.  The party was Saturday and on Thursday I finally got to go shopping, first dollar store nothing, second dollar store nothing, Wal-mart I head for the bakery and order a "how to train your dragon birthday cake please," NOTHING!!  Let me say as a disclaimer I actually asked a friend to make a cake weeks before this and she was going out of town so I looked at the Wal-mart cake book, saw the dragon cake I wanted, and came prepared to order on Thursday.  APPARENTLY they still had the cake in the book but no longer had the items needed to make it, cue my misty eyes.  The baker (and I use that term loosely) did tell me if I brought her a dragon toy she could make a cake to go with it, so I jaunted on down to the toy isle, NO DRAGON TOYS.  Seriously not one, anywhere, cue the hysterical sobbing.  I managed to take my phone out and call J, who was in fact willing to jump in the car and drive 2 hours to find something, and when I got home he had already pulled several tutorials off of the Internet for me on how to bake one myself.  If you know me, you know baking a cake in a circle is difficult for me, in the shape of a dragon impossible.  Once I pulled myself together I remembered the United grocery store and gave them a call, they saved the day with an awesome cake that not even a jump castle could pull DJ away from.  I tried one last dollar store and found the party favors I needed.  I sat down and painted a "Toothless" shirt for him to wear and set out the new kid camera and donuts that were his birthday morning surprise, and found some peace that even though he probably won't remember this birthday or even this last year I did my job, I did all that I could to make him feel special and celebrated and loved and those feelings will be with him for a lifetime even if the memory of the perfect dragon cake won't.

This year DJ...
Became a Big Brother, again

Graduated from Mother's Day Out

Likes to play with "sets"

Was in his Nini's wedding

Got a new "stuck together" bed

Got his first baseball mitt

Got a Daddy hair cut

He also had his first sleep overs with friends Jake P. and Athen K. (no pics unfortunately).
DJ uses adjectives for items, like a towel is a "dryer" and a gun is a "ka-poom thing"
And is really beginning to learn about and understand what it is to be a Christian.

We are so blessed with such an amazing boy, who loves his family with all of his heart and soul.  DJ is a warrior and a leader and I just know that if I can guide him and teach him in the ways that are good and right then he will be a great great man of God, who will change the world.  We love you handsome boy, Happy Happy Birthday!