Happy Birthday Hyrum

Hyrum has been counting down the days to his birthday since Abraham's big day, patiently celebrating Dad's birthday and Jesus' birthday before finally arriving at his own. He woke up around 4am thinking he had slept long enough, but nobody was going to celebrate with him that early in the morning, so I let him come into bed with mom and dad where he restlessly bided his time until nearly 7:00. He was greeted downstairs by a bounce house full of balloons. Well, semi-full. These particular balloons were pretty old and most of them popped either while being blown up or during the night. He still thought it was fun though.

The balloons distracted him for about 3 minutes before he started asking where all his presents were, and if we had set the tree back up to put his gifts under (we de-Christmased the house yesterday, which he was a bit bummed about). He got an Iron Man movie, some Marvel character coloring books, a play in the bath kit, a Cars track set, and a couple more games for his Leapster. 

He requested eggs and toast for breakfast, spent half an hour setting up his new track with Dad, and took a bath with brother. We then loaded everyone up in the car and headed across the river. After a stop at Sam's Club where he got to pick out whatever he wanted from the candy isle (he chose a bucket of Laffy Taffy sticks) we once again arrived at Chuckie Cheese for some birthday fun. He'd been talking about going back since we went with Abraham, and was very excited. We had some amount of foresight and saved about half the tokens we purchased the first time around. It was a little busier than before, but not bad and the boys did really well. We stayed about an hour and everyone seemed ready and willing to leave when we ran out of coins. 

He asked for peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, and when questioned what he wanted to do during quiet time, chose to spend the afternoon watching Goofy cartoons. He wanted eggs and toast again for dinner (easiest birthday meal requests ever) and was super excited about his cake. He had initially asked for a chocolate cake with black frosting, but with all our family's dietary restrictions he wouldn't have been able to share any with the rest of us. So I made a yellow cake using applesauce, which didn't come out of the pans well and needed to be somewhat pieced back together (I'm still experimenting with non-fat baking). Then using two boxes of low-fat pudding, lactose free skim milk, and a container of fat free non-dairy frozen treat made a bi-flavored concoction which didn't turn out too gross. He felt very special that he had two flavors (Dad and Abraham only had one) and there were multiple types of sprinkles which just made it all the better. 

Matthew and I were discussing how strange it seems that our first born has been around for four years. Sometimes it feels like only a minute has passed since we brought home our new little baby, but most of the time I can hardly remember what life was like without him. He has grown up so much and has become so independent. His interests and sense of humor continue to deepen and develop. He continues to love all things super hero, and his deep devotion to tools and working has not diminished one bit. He is a little too obsessed with watching shows, but that has decreased some as he has learned to play educational games on the computer. He is so very close to being able to identify all the letters of the alphabet and the sounds they make, and can generally count pretty accurately. He likes to pretend pretty much any thing is a family (buttons, beads, fabric scraps, pieces of plastic food...) He'll make voices for them, and send them to bed or off to school. He's a super picky eater and is constantly telling me he hates whatever is put before him unless it involves peanut butter or is in some way sweet. He loves his brother, despite picking fights with him as often as playing nicely. He is obedient when it matters and a stubborn stick in the mud the rest of the time. We love our sweet Hyrum so much and are so glad to have celebrated another birthday with him.

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And just for kicks and giggles, here's a few birthday outtakes of Abraham.

He's loving the balloons, but not so thrilled that the presents aren't for him (or it could be that someone forced him into those somewhat girly pajamas)