Craig and Becca Maughan: 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.