Grants Birthday

Grant turned 4 this year, right after we welcomed Trent into our family.  I was very worried that Grant would feel overlooked as the new middle child so I wanted to make sure that he would have a fun birthday.  Grant has been really into the new Disney Planes movie, so we decided to have a planes themed birthday, however Grant's birthday also happened to be on Super Bowl Sunday (again) so I had to work in the football game somehow. 

 The Saturday before the game We had a family birthday party, I sent out super cute (and easy) paper airplane invitations and everyone arrived for dinner and fun.  Once again he was spoiled rotten by his grandparents.

 He got books, puzzles, a toy kitchen, transformer dinosaurs, and an awesome trio block castle set, not to mention money and many other fun toys.  He loved all his toys and had a great time playing with them.

 After the family left from the party, he got another surprise when Grandma Dee Ann and Grandpa Wyn showed up to spend the night.

 The next morning on his real birthday we did family presents (not that he needed any. :)).

 He got a fun sword and shield set for both him and Brandon, a pully system for his bunk bed, a straw building set, two new trio block cars, two new leap pad games, some more planes form the movie, and the SS Flysenhower (the air craft carrier from the movie planes).  Spoiled Rotten!

 As if that wasn't all enough he had one more AWESOME surprise from Jared.  Every year Jared gets a few great tickets (row 19 in the center) to the Jazz Game.  This year Jared decided (and I reluctantly agreed) to take Grant to the game.  Grant LOVES sports so he was very excited to go to a real basketball game.  I think his face says it all. :)

 After church we invited some neighbor friends over to watch the game and to watch the movie planes.  I turned our garage into a children's movie theater using my dads projector, lots of blankets and chairs, and a few toys and snakes - they were very happy to be in the garage all night while the rest of us were in the house watching the Super Bowl.  The garage was so fun the adults occasionally had a hard time staying in to watch the game. ;)

 For this party I made a Dusty Crophopper plane cake, the kids Loved it!  and overall I was happy with how it turned out too.

Happy Birthday Grant!  We sure do love you!!

Some fun things about Grant that I never want to forget are:
* The way he still can not pronounce words with a double consonant for the beginning, especially if one of the consonants is an S, for example spoon is poon, spider is pider, etc.
* Other funny mispronunciations - potatoes (his favorite food) is matatoes, funny is foony, late night is hate night,
* He loves to pretend he is Spider Man.  He and Brandon will almost always be playing Darkzilla or Rascal the Hot Lava Dragon (Brandon) and Spider Man (Grant).  Spider Man has a pet dragon (Brandon) that he uses to help him save the world, they also have a Dragon family to care for which include the beloved Askee (a tiny toy blue dragon).  Some day I need to get pictures of these toys and of the boys in action when they play.  They play SO well together, they are just the best of friends and I love it!!   I only hope that when Trent is old enough he will have a part in their play time as well.
* His favorite animal is spiders - yuck, but if you are Spider Man it is only natural that your favorite animal is a spider - if I ever kill a spider Grant will pout and glare at me for a very long time afterwards.  Infact, one day I was changing Trents diaper and getting him ready for bed, I needed a specific blanket which was buried under some other blankets near the rocking chair and changing table so I was moving the other blankets over Trent out of the way.  When I looked back at Trent there was a big (size of a quarter) spider crawling up his stomach towards his face.  Naturally I FREAKED OUT, screamed and frantically brushed it off of him onto the ground so that Jared, who had rushed in to see what the commotion was all about, could kill it.  Boy oh boy were we in trouble - after all that spider was probably trying to bite Trent and turn him into the REAL spider mad. UGH!  Grants imagination.  :)
* He is an amazing eater - he is willing to give everything a try at least once.  He especially loves meat and potatoes, juice, fruit, and maghetti-o's (Spaghetti-O's)
* He is a peacemaker -he observes Brandon and his very frequent temper tantrums and outbursts and tries so hard to be the opposite.  Kind, obedient, and super compliant.  I am so grateful!
* He has great friends and plays really well with them.  His friends include; Tyler, Daeman, Patrick, Caleb, and Jared.
* Grant loves to help me in the kitchen with the cooking
* Grant still loves to play with trains, blocks, puzzles and sports
* He is adorably bashful - everyone who meets him is smitten by his bashful smile and his big hazel eyes.
* He is also a great two wheel bike rider.

I just LOVE this boy so very much!!  Happy Birthday Grant!!!