Birthday boy....11 days late

Whew! I can't believe it has taken me this long to post about Haken's Birthday. Ok, maybe I can...Summer has really thrown me for a loop already! My little boy turned 4 years old on June 13th. He is such a big kid now! Sometimes I look at Jack and think "there is no way that Haken was once this small!" Haken was pretty lucky and actually had 3 days where we celebrated his birthday. The first was at Grandma and Grandpa Evans' house the week before his birthday. He shared a birthday party with uncle Cam whose birthday is 2 days before his.

Can you guess what is in this big box from Grandma and Grandpa?....

...It was a REAL Jr. set of golf clubs. Daddy was just as excited as Haken!

Of course he had to go outside and test them out while we were there with the huge bucket of practice balls from Grandpa. He loves those clubs! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa! He's gonna be pro one day just because of you!

Here they are... Aren't they the cutest things you have ever seen? They are so tiny! The heads on the drivers are as big as normal golf clubs with tiny little shafts. So cute!

I had to take a picture of them next to Shad's golf clubs just so you could get an idea of how tiny they really are.

The next celebration was on his actual birthday. The circus came into town for the day so we bought tickets and went as a family. I don't remember ever going to the circus as a kid, although my parents said we did. I think I was too little to remember. I don't know what I was expecting, but it was...fun I guess. I think everyone needs to go to the circus at least once in their life, preferably as a kid. I'm glad that Haken got a kick out of it and enjoyed it. I think I was ok leaving the last 15 minutes to go and feed Jack in the car. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I didn't have a headache from the very beginning.

Here is "Mr. Showboat" in front of the circus tent

Outside the tent they had animals and rides that you could pay extra money and ride. I'm glad Haken wasn't insisting on riding the elephant because it was an extra $6. I kept waiting for the animals to be in the show but they weren't...kinda lame.

Haken did like riding the little pony outside before the show. I know he liked it because most of the time I can't get an honest smile out of him for pictures.

Riding the little train...in the caboose....by himself.

Waiting for the show to start in the tent.

The last (thank heavens!) celebration was Haken's birthday party the next day. I'm glad we did it on this day because it FINALLY warmed up to the high 70's so we could have a water party in the back yard. I debated over whether to do a birthday party for him this year. A lot of his friends had birthday parties this year and he was invited. After each one he would tell me about how he was going to invite them to his birthday party. So, after all that build up, I couldn't disappoint him. It really wasn't too much work and I think it turned out to be a success. He has made so many great friends in the last year so I thought this would be fun for him. We invited 10 kids (7 boys and 3 girls). I had a kiddie pool, a slip n' slide, and the trampoline with a sprinkler underneath set up. I also filled up 150 water balloons. We played one game with them and then the rest were gone in like 2 minutes with an all out brawl. I think the biggest hit of the party was the water squirters I bought for all the kids. They LOVED shooting each other, but didn't like it so much when they got hit themselves, funny 4-yr-olds!

It's amazing how many kids fit in that little pool!

Figuring out how to fill up their squirters.

Next Haken opened presents and they each "bumped" him on the head with their gift.

I love this picture. It really shows you how excited Rylee was to give Haken his bubble gun. The next day he called to see if Haken could come over and bring his bubble gun to play. So cute!

His "HUGE" forklift from Everest.

Last we had cake and ice cream. I had big plans to try and make Haken a cute train cake with fondant and everything and then just decided to go 'easier' and do cupcakes. Leave it up to me to make it harder though......I ended up molding little race cars out of fondant to put on each one of the cupcakes. Pretty much took 2 hours the night before to make them. I have never worked with fondant before, it gave me an appreciation for some of the amazing fondant creations I have seen. I think it turned out ok and the kids were excited that they could eat the cars. In retrospect however, I think I would have rather bought the cute Disney "Cars" cupcakes they had at the store....

The cake was actually in afterthought because I had extra batter and didn't want to make any more car cupcakes than I had to...

Perfect little kids eating my not so perfect creations...

The highlight of the day was when we finally gave Haken our gift to him. He has been riding around a little trike for the last year and we decided it was time to get him a 'real' bike. My awesome friend gave us a bike that was just perfect for Haken. We tried to get him to learn without the training wheels first, but he insisted on putting them on because he wanted to be able to really ride it. I guess they will come off when he is ready. For now he is just loving cruising along with me as I push Jack around in the stroller.

I think he had a really great birthday. He is such a sweet little boy to have in our family. I'm so glad that he came into our family 4 years ago. I think birthdays and parties aren't just for kids, I am grateful for the opportunity it gives me as a parent to reflect on how much he has changed and how grateful I am to have him in my life. Love you Haken, my sweet big boy!