4 Years Old!

Calder is 4 years old!  What a guy.  He was so excited for his birthday!!  Every time he would pray, he would bless that his "birthday would come in a couple of weeks."  

This is the best birthday picture I could get of him.  He was too excited and would just dance around. :)

Some things about Calder:

• He LOVES playing with friends!  He always mentions in his prayers that he is thankful to play with his friends. 
• Calder has very good balance (for a 4 year old) and loves anything with wheels!  He switched from his strider bike (with no pedals) to a pedal bike in October, with no training wheels. (post about that still to come...) It took him just a couple tries on it to get the hang of pedaling, and he has got it down!  He got a scooter for Christmas, that he loves riding up and down our driveway outside, and he just recently got a pair of roller skates.  He has been practicing with those things all over our house, and is now pretty stable.  I think he might be ready to try them outside. :)
• He LOVES books.  We go to the library every week, and he always has something in mind that he wants to learn about (plumbing, insects, birds, etc) and we find a book about it to check out and bring home.  He recently read his first word (without any context clues or help from me) off of the back of a graham cracker box. (TOP was the word)
• He is practicing writing all of the letters.  He can write his name, and although I can recognize it, I am not sure how many other people could tell what it says. :)
• Calder is such a sensitive little guy.  He hates it when there are bad guys in movies, and never wants to watch those parts.  He is cuddly, and can be so sweet and thoughtful. (He does have his moments that are not so sweet too)
• He loves to wrestle.  Craig has taught him some basic wrestling moves, and he loves to try and take Craig down, (or anyone, really.  He is pretty strong! I am trying to help him understand Adelaide isn't quite old enough to wrestle...)
• One thing that we are really trying to work on is drinking enough water/fluid during the day.  It is a struggle for him, and so he has been working (with a lot of encouragement from me) hard to make sure he is drinking enough.
• Calder loves music.  He likes to sit down at the piano and play songs for me.  I love it!
• The toys Calder loves are legos! Right now he is obsessed with them, and they are pretty much all he has played with for the last 5 days.  He just keeps building "modifications" on his cars.  It is awesome.  He will build with them all day.
• Other toys he has loved recently: hot wheels car tracks, his castle with knights and a dragon, and he plays with the play kitchen with Adelaide.  He also really likes to race around the house.
• He likes to eat graham crackers and milk every night before he goes to bed.  Other snacks he likes: apples, cheese crackers, string cheese, kiwi, blueberries, carrots
• Calder loves to play hide and seek.  He is starting to get pretty good at hiding, too.  I actually have to look for him now!
• He loves to make up knock knock jokes.  They never usually make any sense, but he thinks they are hilarious! (and sometimes, they really are!)
• Calder is very curious.  He asks questions about everything and wants to know "how does it work?"
• When we go on longer bike rides (longer meaning more than just on our street) he always pretends his bike is a horse and has to name it.  Some of the names he frequently uses are Starlight and Appledore.

For Calder's birthday, we had a little party with some of his friends.  They are so cute when they all get together!

Adelaide felt so big being able to sit at the table with all the kids.

 They ate pizza, and we played games like hot potato, charades (which was pretty entertaining), and simon says.  Then we opened presents, and finished off with some cupcakes.

I love how everyone had to stand so close while Calder opened the presents.

 We decided to get a bigger present for him instead of a few small ones.  So Craig and I built a soccer goal for him (which will be kept outside).  He likes it.  We haven't had super good weather yet to enjoy it, so hopefully we get some good use out of it this summer.

 We also got a spiderman nightlight for him.  He keeps talking about wanting a lamp like the one Curious George has (it spins and projects an image in the room) so hopefully this fits the bill.

He was so thrilled about the nightlight.  The simplest things...:)

Grandma and Grandpa Maughan got Calder some knee, elbow, and wrist pads for his roller skates.  He was excited about those too.  It took him a week to want to try them out, but now he really enjoys them, and will fall on his knees just because he can without getting hurt.  She also gave him a horn and water bottle for his bike.

 Grandma and Grandpa Slagowski gave him a dragon to go with his castle.  It makes sounds and the wings move when you take it off the ground.

Calder wanted a lego cake for his birthday.  So that is what we did!  

 The afternoon before his birthday, it started snowing.  Any snow in Arkansas usually means that the roads ice over, and everyone is home bound until it melts.  It is kind of crazy! It snowed all evening the day before his birthday, and all day on his birthday.  So we ended up spending the day just playing with his new toys.  I think Calder had a blast.

We ended up getting together that night with a couple families in our ward who are also in our neighborhood (so none of us had to go far).  We brought his cake over to their house and sang Happy Birthday to him over there.

 Happy Birthday Calder!

He thinks sticking out his tongue in pictures is so funny!

And another picture with his tongue out...

Christmas all year round

Yes. We are jumping back to Christmas so that I can document it.

Before we left for Utah, I took some pictures of kids sitting on Santa's lap for some friends, so Craig brought our kids so they could see Santa. Calder wasn't sure at first, but then he had no problem telling him exactly what he wanted - bowling ball and pins and a scooter.

Adelaide wanted nothing to do with him.

We spent December doing Christmasy things - every day the kids would open our little countdown box, and there would be an activity for us to do.  We learned Christmas songs, made treats, colored pictures, went Christmas shopping, etc.  The kids and I loved it!  We went Christmas caroling to some people in a nursing home, and that was a lot of fun.  Calder really sang out on the songs that he knew. :)

We drove to Utah for most of the holiday season.  The drive was ok- we made it there in one piece!  But we did get a later start than we had planned on, plus an unexpected 2 hours of additional drive time because of traffic and bad weather that we hit in Wyoming.  But we made it!

We got to spend time with both sides of the family. which was wonderful.

I always love the annual Slagowski family Christmas party.  Even though both grandparents from that side have passed away, we still carry on the tradition.  Santa comes every year, and it is the same Santa that has come since I was a little girl. (well, obviously, because there really is only one Santa...)

Calder knows that Santa brings fun things.  So he is willing to grin for a picture in exchange for a present.

Once again, Adelaide wanted nothing to do with him.

 Santa gave Calder and Blaze lightsabers. Definite win.

Calder proudly played with his lightsaber for the rest of the evening.

 We have a new tradition with my side of the family now - everyone sleeps over on the night of the 23rd, and the Christmas Eve morning is when my parents give gifts to all of us kids/grandkids.

Adelaide is obsessed with puppies.  She loves this little stuffed animal she got from my parents.

 Another big hit - the binoculars!

 The best gift of all was the castle.  Calder spends hours playing with this thing!  I love toys that he can play pretend with.

 We drove up to the Maughans that evening and had helped cook dinner.  We decided to do a crab boil this year.  It was so much fun!  We boiled crab, shrimp, potatoes, corn, and some spices.  When it was done, we dumped it out on the table and ate with our hands.  Not your typical fancy Christmas Eve dinner on nice dishes, but it was delicious, and a lot of fun!

Craig's sisters helped us play Santa and wrap gifts and get stockings ready.

Calder is anxiously waiting for when we let him go into the living room.

So excited to see what Santa brought!!

Going through stockings

 It was so fun to have so many of Craig's family there: Matt and Marie, Alexis, Annie, Carin, and his parents.

Calder happened to get just what he asked for!  Adelaide gave him a little bowling set, and Santa brought him a scooter!  He was thrilled.

Good thing Grandma Maughan's house has a nice tile hallway so he could ride his scooter all morning!

Calder also got a lego starter set, a football, and from the Maughan's he got some hot wheels track and cars.

Adelaide got a play kitchen!  I was so excited for her to get this!  But since we were travelling, we left it in the box and so she didn't really get excited about it until we got home and put it all together.  Both kids are quite the little chefs.  She also got some puzzles from Calder, toy food for her kitchen from Grandma Maughan, and a giant stuffed panda bear.

Christmas with kids is so much fun!

It snowed all Christmas day.  It was perfect!  So we got to go out an enjoy the snow.  It was Adelaide's first time playing in the snow...last year she was too little for me to take her outside in it.

She mostly liked the snow.

There is a hill in their backyard that was perfect for sledding!

We all enjoyed sledding!

Calder had a blast!

We had to catch him at the bottom of the hill so he wouldn't go into the road.

We all had so much fun playing in the snow!

We also drove out to Hardware Ranch to see the elk.  Annie and Grandma Maughan came with us. 

Waiting to get on the sleigh.

We got to ride in a horse drawn sleigh/wagon through the herd of elk.

Calder loves making faces for the camera...

Ha. I love this kid.

So many elk!  The kids liked to see them, but weren't quite as amazed as I hoped they would be. :)

Close up of Adelaide.

Group shot!

Calder got some big time air walking back to the car!

Proof that Adelaide happily went to someone other than me or Craig.  It doesn't usually happen...

Snow ball fight with Grandma!

Adelaide thought the idea of throwing snow was hilarious!

After a few days at the Maughan's, we went back to my parents house.  Angie and her kids came and spent a few days with us.

One of the favorite games the kids play at my parents house is hide and go seek with their headlamps.  They turn off all the lights, and then after they hide, they turn off their headlamps.  Then the person who is "seeking" leaves their headlamp on to find everyone else.  Usually it ends up that the kdis just run around with headlamps on. It is pretty cute.

Adelaide and Kenzie wanted to wear headlamps this time, too!

Movie time with cousins!

For new Years, Craig and I got to go on a date (woohoo!). We went ice skating at the Olymipic ice rink which was so much fun!  Then we picked up some delicious gelato from target and headed back to my parents to play games with the fam.  

We also got to go to the zoo with my mom and Craig's sister, Megan.  It was so much fun!  The kids loved seeing all of the animals, and it was fun spending time with Megan and Avery.   

We decided to break up the drive home and go to Arches.  We have some friends (shout out to Jessie and Cole!) that live in Moab that met up with us.  It was so good to see them!  The red rock against the clear blue sky is always so stunning.  The snow made it a fun experience - we were't expecting it to be so cold!

 The boys (Calder and Jack) had a great time running around and climbing together.  Calder told me that Jack was his best friend.

 It was so nice to get out of the car and hike around.  And it was so nice to see and chat with some old friends.  It is good for the soul. :)

Mountain climbers

After Moab, we expected a quick 5ish hour drive to Denver where we planned to have dinner, swim in the hotel pool, and spend the night.  Once again, we hit unexpected traffic.  Except this time, we sat for 3 hours on the highway, when we were only about 30 min outside of Denver.  That has a way of dampening your spirits.  We made it to Denver in time to grab a quick bite to eat, find a hotel, and crawl into bed.  It was so great to make it back home to Arkansas.  Christmas was wonderful. Our trip to Utah was wonderful.  I love to see family and spend time with them!  But it is always so, so nice to make it back home.