Four...

Yesterday officially kicked off the week-long celebration of Kyle's birthday. The only thing he wanted was a DS but Keith nipped that in the bud right away. I wanted to throw a party for him because I had superb ideas but it just wouldn't work out. He chose to go to Crazy Bounce and he invited Isaac. Obviously he was easily swayed to also invite the girls because DUH! I didn't take any pics at CB. This was our third party there and the pics always look the same. I chose to write it down to remember it.

After bouncing, we headed back to our home for a short but sweet birthday dinner. We had major chaos at Meijer. Yeah, I shopped on our way home. The dip was fat free, {eww} I forgot the ice cream and the cake was not pretty but I told the girl it was awesome because I didn't order it ahead of time. We grilled out and then kyle wanted to open his presents. He really wanted to get some money so he could shop like his brothers do. Grandma had a little left over after buying Kyle's gift.

Imagine Kyle's surprise when he opened his big gift {the one all children gravitate toward first}...

...and it was his very own set of shoulder pads!!!!

Skipping ahead, he actually skipped cake to play football downstairs. He was so excited.

Isaac picked out the gift from the TenBrinkmans. I'm surprised he {Isaac} didn't want to play with it. Skipping ahead again, Kyle got out of bed last night to take care of his new Monster Trucks. There is a place on this rock hill for the trucks to hang while being stored. I like to think he was getting ready to be a responsible 4 year old but my theory is that he just wanted another excuse to get out of bed.

Hehe. I was taking pics of Kyle giving some birthday love to his fam and my mom just happened to make her way in also.

Some Unca Jimmy love...

Like I said, Kyle was ready to play without eating his cake. We had to keep him upstairs long enough to do the whole cake thing because everyone else wanted some.

Pretty cute cake. Not as good as I've seen but I didn't expect much since I didn't give any warning.

I think Kyle went to bed 7 or 8 times last night. He just wanted to keep getting up. Once, when he took his vitamin, Keith read the bottle and told Kyle that it was the last night he would take half of a vitamin. At four, he'll get to take a whole one. I finally sat with him and explained that he had to fall asleep in order for the birthday fairy to come and change him from three to four. Otherwise he would stay three. He asked me to take his picture so he could see it in the morning to see if he changed.

Because of the late night, this morning wasn't so fun. I could not get Kyle to wake up. He was so tired. Keith called to speak with Kyle. I asked Kyle if he wanted to talk to daddy and he mumbled, "mm hmm" and I handed him the phone. He said to Keith, "What are you doing? {but not in a hey-how's-it-going kind of way, but more like a why-are-you-bothering-me kind of way} I'm tired, can you talk to mom?" All the while, he looked like this...

Kyle finally woke up around 8ish. He was still slow moving and he wanted to put on his pads. I asked him to pick out his special birthday outfit and told him we'd eat breakfast together first. He asked me if I saved him a piece of cake. I told him he could eat it for breakfast if he wanted to. He thought it was a great idea. Not to be a stick-in-the-mud, I cut myself a piece also, poured two glasses of milk and sat beside him to eat. But not before I lit a candle, sang happy birthday and let him blow it out.

I had a perfectly nice, quiet and dry evening planned for myself tonight, but since it is Kyle's birthday and since he really wants to wear his new pads to practice, I let him pack his football gear into the van {pants, pads, jersey, helmet and cleats included} and told him I'd take him tonight. He was very happy. {but you cannot tell from this goofy picture}

**Shhh...don't tell...but can you imagine how excited Kyle will be after next weekend when he gets more football equipment from Gramma Stratton? He's getting new black football pants!! ;)