Pummy Time: Eli Turns 4!

Eli turned 4 today! How did this happen?? Anyway...

(Don't you just love the birthday shirt that I found him?? I just happened to see it while shopping online at Gymboree and I had to have it! It was perfect!)

Last week Eli had his birthday snack at school. I made Dino Dig Dirt Cups and even hid "dino eggs" (peanut M and Ms) in the middle. Honestly, most of the kids didn't even care that there was an "egg" in there. They just gobbled everything right up. It took Eli a little while to find his egg, but then he ate it right up too.

Today we just had a little family celebration. We started the day with chocolate chip pancakes that spelled out Eli's name. I was so out of it this morning that I forgot to ask him what color he wanted them to be! Oh well. I'm sure he won't be scarred for life, right?

Then Eli's class had a field trip to watch a production of Eric Carle Treasured Stories. They performed The Very Hungry Caterpillar; Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?; and Papa Please Get the Moon for Me. It was an awesome show! The 2 puppeteers used black lights and everything had glow-in-the-dark paint. I was so impressed by everything! I was sad that I didn't let Elina skip school to watch it with us. Eli and Evie both enjoyed the show. Evie just started getting into Brown Bear, so she really sat there and watched it.

After the show, we picked Elina up from school early to go play with us. Last year we took her out of school for Eli's birthday as well. I think it's becoming our family tradition! We were supposed to go ride the train at the zoo, but it was SO cold out today...windy and 40F! So we had to do Eli's 2nd favorite thing (which I don't think is quite as exciting)--go to Chuck E. Cheese. We ate lunch there and the kids just played and played. It was really fun because there was almost no one there.

Every year for our Christmas advent calendar, I leave a note about something special that we can do as a family or that the kids can do for each other. Today's special note was "Eat dessert first at dinner tonight." The kids were so excited about this! I figured it would be a good way to let them burn off some of the cake sugar before bedtime.

Eli chose a T-Rex chocolate chip cake for his birthday this year. I found an ok-looking one online, but it actually came out cuter than I had expected. The picture online doesn't do it justice. It was easier than I expected, too. And I must say that all my "icing lessons" with my friend LW have really paid off. This was the first time I was comfortable icing a cake. Granted it was only for our little family, so the pressure was very low...but still, I did better than I've ever done before! This was a tough one to ice, too, because of all the cut edges with crumbs. After I iced it, I had the kids decorate it with candy. They loved doing this part. I think Eli actually consumed more candy than he actually put onto the cake. Overall, it turned out nicely, right? The most important thing is that Eli absolutely loved it!

This is what Eli wished for...

This was what Eli liked the most about the cake...

After cake, Eli opened his presents. He got some really cool things...pretend camping stuff, cars, a car racing track (he has been wanting one forever!...can you tell that he's excited in the picture below?), a play backhoe (courtesy of Elina).

Here was Elina's cute drawing for Eli on his envelope...I told Elina, "Don't spend too much time on the envelope, Elina. I'm not sure he's even going to see it." And sure enough, Eli's face lit up when he saw the picture Elina drew for him and he said, "Whoa! A dinosaur picture!" I told Elina that she was was right and she said, "See, Mommy, I know him soooooooo well. I know him the best." That is SOOOOOO true!