Do you ever feel like seeing your children grow can be so bittersweet? Don’t get me wrong, I am so thankful to watch them grow and see their little personalities develop, but knowing some precious stages are behind us can leave you with mixed emotions.
Yesterday A turned four, and it felt like it was just yesterday that I was dreading being induced only for him to surprise me last minute and come on his own. And pretty quickly at that. He gave me one of the greatest gifts in the world that I am so thankful for, to be his mother. I still need to share his birth story one day, but for now I’ll share with you his most recent birthday.
If you haven’t noticed, one of our favorite things to do as a family is visit local farms. Seeing the boys interact with the animals and play in the open fields is so refreshing and a nice little break from the every day hustle and bustle. When he told me he wanted a paw patrol pumpkin party, I wasn’t exactly sure how I would be able to pull that off. The more I thought about it, we had the perfect farm in mind to make it all happen.
I decided to keep the decor simple because the farm already had a great backdrop and the important part was making sure the kids had fun. We had paw patrol plates, napkins, party bags, and cupcakes but didn’t want to go overboard with the theme. A requested to have paw patrol masks instead of party hats and I loved how cute all of the kids looked in them. Eric and I were up the night before painting pumpkins for him and decided to have a little contest with our guests and asked them to vote on which one they liked the best. I’m happy to say mine won…can you guess which one I did? You should have seen his face when came down the next morning and saw them sitting on the table. He could not wait to get there to show all of his friends.
Of course it wouldn’t be an outdoor party with some sort of weather mishap. We fought off some wind to get everything setup, but after that it was time to party. We all went and enjoyed a hayride, picking pumpkins, and the kids loved going on a train ride too. I had a table set up for the kids to decorate their pumpkins but they decided it was a better plan to just sit right down on the ground and do them there. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about kids and parties, you just need to go with the flow.
I wanted something simple and easy to display his cake and cupcakes on, so I wrapped a few different sized boxes and stacked them up. The best part was it was a very easy clean up and we just threw them out after.
He started getting a little antsy and wanted to open all of this gifts. I mean they were staring at him for the past two hours, but he’s the type of kid that wants to not only unwrap the present but take it out of the box, build it, line it up, and the whole deal. The last thing we wanted to do was lose pieces near the sunflower patch. We let him open up one and he held onto that thing with a death grip.
The best part of the party was seeing all of the smiles on the kids faces and having so much fun together. Their little friendships are so amazing and it makes my heart so happy to see them growing up with some of my friends kids.
To my sweet and sour boy, not only do you continue to amaze me everyday but you have taught me so much about myself. We are learning new things together all the time and our memories together are some of my favorites. I love that you will just stop what you are doing to tell me how much you love me and give me the best hugs and kisses. I know it’s not always easy for you to share, but we are working on it, and I know that you will get there soon. Your little brother looks up to you so much and even yesterday when I went in to get him out of bed, the first thing he told me was how much he loved you. I pray that you will always be the best of friends and always have love and respect for each other. Your memory amazes me and often times it leaves me speechless. You’re one of the youngest in your class now but continually show us how amazing you are academically. I love to see you use your imagination and creative side. You are constantly trying to build something and a lot times they come out really, really good. Even if you do you use a whole roll of tape to put it all together. I pray that God will continue to lead and guide you and that He would have big plans for your life. Continue to shine my love and never doubt how much you are loved.
