Happy Birthday to Seth!

Our little man turned 4 on July 12th.  

We started the celebration off right:

Balloons, the truck balloon he picked out, and Lucky Charms.

(Lucky Charms are not usually purchased in this house, and with good reason.  I think only 20% of the actual cereal got eaten as opposed to 100% of the marshmallows.  

Which leads to one of my favorite Seth quotes, as spoken to his bowl of cereal: 

"THERE ARE NO MARSHMALLOWS IN HERE.  THESE ARE NOT DELICIOUS.")

Since the marshmallows are gone, clearly the only thing this bowl is good for is for dunking cars.

We'd warned him for months that four-year-olds are big boys, and big boys don't have pacifiers.

In retrospect, this was not the best idea--we pretty much made him dread his birthday.

"I don't want to be four.  Because then I will be big and there will be no more pacifiers."

Oops.

But it was too late to back out, so after his birthday dinner we headed out to look for a bike.

Things got a bit complicated when we realized he was too tall for the 12'' tires we planned on getting, 

but just barely tall enough for the 16'' tires.  The only 14'' tires we found were on a lovely, sparkly pink bike.

Seth was all for it, but we figured he would regret that decision someday soon.

In the end he choose a nice red & black bike with 16'' tires and training wheels.  

At least it will last a bit longer!

[insert the picture I forgot to take of Seth 'buying' his new bike with his bag of pacifiers]

Then it was home for the inaugural ride: 

Prepping the bike for takeoff

So happy on his big bike

I was a little worried when he rode it once around the loop and then demanded his trike.  

Luckily he wasn't afraid to get back on and is now riding (and braking) like a pro!

Day two of riding--those pedals can be tricky!

We spent so much time finding a bike that we didn't have time to open presents.

Thankfully he didn't remember, so we just opened them the next night.

This was supposed to be the "before" picture, with all his wrapped gifts. 

Unfortunately, in the time it took me to walk to the kitchen to get the camera, he'd already done this: 

He was very spoiled with books, a Nerf gun, Matchbox cars (of course) and wooden blocks

Telling Grandma Cathy 'thank you' for the blocks and books

What could be better than old school wooden blocks?

Wooden blocks with CARS in them!

Catherine is quite pleased with her gifts.

I mean, Seth's gifts. 

Happy Birthday, Little Man!