Banana Pancakes: Max’s Fourth Birthday Extravaganza

Max turned FOUR on October 5th and I cried a little. It happens with every birthday my boys have. Mostly they are happy tears. I’m reminded how happy I am to be their Mommy and how quickly they are growing up. Sometimes I wish I could just freeze time. I heard a quote once about motherhood, “the days are long but the years are short”. Every birthday I am reminded how truly blessed I am for my time with my children. I never could have imagined how much joy they would bring into my life.

Max is the sweetest little boy I could ever ask for. He is so full of personality. He says things that crack us up every single day. He has a smile that absolutely melts my heart. He is my little boyfriend. Seriously. He is always asking me to snuggle him. If we are watching a movie on the couch he will always reach over and hold my hand. It has been such a fun year watching him learn new skills in school, swim lessons and soccer. He has made many new friends, but his little brother is still his best friend. Don’t get me wrong, they fight like CRAZY. But every single morning Max wakes Kyler up early because he just can’t wait to play with him. Max is also sweet to watch out for Kyler and I catch him doing sweet things for him when he thinks no one is watching. Love him to pieces.

Max Opening up a spider man mask and avenger shirt from Uncle Collin and Aunt Ally. As you can tell he was super excited!

He also got a ninja turle, transformer, legos and an Angry Birds umbrella. Random I know. Kyler also got a ninja turtle and umbrella so they could play together.

Attempting a family picture while holding the camera at arms length.

CAMPING!!

For his birthday we decided to go CAMPING. Actually if I’m being honest, we were already wanting to go camping with the Jones’s and Petersens, and his birthday happened to be on the only weekend that it worked for us to go camping. Mr. Max was convinced that we were planning an elaborate camping birthday party just for him. He was thrilled. We started off the day with our usual breakfast donuts. Then I got us all packed for camping. Jeremy worked from home so we were able to open a few presents that afternoon and then we took off to Double Lakes camp ground up by Livingston. We had a blast!! We ate cupcakes that evening and Max blew out his candles and we sang. We also roasted s’mores around the campfire. We camped for two days and I think all the children were in heaven. My boys especially because they were allowed to get extra dirty. I brought them both buckets and they spent hours filling their bucket with dirt and little treasures like shells, pinecones, twigs, and bugs. Kyler literally spent two whole days just digging in dirt and dumping it on his head. We spent many hours around the campfire talking, eating good food, riding bikes, had a butterfly funeral, Diana and the children told scary stories, Tayla and Addy put on a talent show, we went into town for shakes…. And the best part was the weather was chilly and perfect campfire weather! We had a blast and can’t wait to go camping again!

We got there as it started to get dark. The kiddos took off exploring and the guys quickly put up the tents. Then we ate cupcakes and roasted s’mores.

The next day was filled with lots of exploring.

Addy and Tayla found a “butterfly” (nasty moth) that was injured. It died a few minutes later and so the children had a funeral and buried it.

lots of sitting around the campfire

We had to take this picture because the children just happen to be sitting in order from oldest to youngest. Love all these little kiddos

Sorry Di but these ones made me laugh. Poor Lyla got sad while I was taking her picture and she had ice cream in her mouth. Also notice that Miss Lyla is in her swimsuit and everyone else is in warm clothes. She decided to go into her tent by herself and put on the swimsuit. She insisted on wearing it and it was too funny!