Wally's 4th Birthday!

My baby is 4! It seems like just yesterday that he was peeing himself in the face while I changed his diapers and puking on me at least twice a day. I look at him now, and realize that he looks more and more like a kid and less and less like a baby everyday. Though I do miss baby Wally, I wouldn't change him for the world. He is becoming such a loving and caring little boy with a great imagination.

We contemplated getting Wally a big kid bicycle. However, he is kind of right in between sizes, and well, maybe I'm not ready to see my baby riding a bike (and maybe I don't want to visit the ER any time soon). So, we got Wally a big wheel instead. At approximately 5:50 am on August 12, Wally was up and ready to get his birthday started. We had his big wheel in the living room waiting for him. He was all smiles.
So, at approximately 6:00am, we were outside riding the big wheel around the loop.

One must wear a birthday hat on one's birthday. He also picked out his clothes. He was adamant that he wanted to wear his shirt he made in Sunday School. I found it funny, because it was the first time that I can remember that he ever cared what clothes he wore (except for maybe Spiderman underwear). Guess he was a year older that day!

Since his birthday was on a Coop day, I planned a field trip for the whole class to visit the fire department. So Wally and his 9 closest friends (and their parents and some grandparents) all made the 1 block trek to the fire department. They started the tour with a story about Corduroy the bear visiting a fire department and managed to sneak some fire safety in too.

We of course got to see the fire trucks and toured the station. We got to see the sleeping quarters, the kitchen, and even the fire pole!

Even though it was a very hot day, Wally had to wear his firefighter coat and hat. I thought he was going to get heat stroke! I felt really bad for the fire fighter who put all of his gear on. He let the kids touch him and listen as he spoke through the mask, as it sounded all warped and electronic. He wanted the kids to not be scared so that if there ever was a fire, they wouldn't hide from the fire fighters. At the end of the tour, they even sent all of the kids home with hats, coloring books, stickers, etc.

We then went back to the Coop for cupcakes. We sang happy birthday to Wally and then waited and waited for him to blow out his candle. He then said, "I'm making a wish."

His wish was so sweet, and he was so eloquent when he said it. Of course, I didn't get it on camera, so I made him repeat it:

"I wish we could all be friends forever!" It nearly brought tears to my eyes. He came up with that all by himself, as we never discussed making a wish before blowing out candles, and especially the bit about being friends forever. Makes it that much sadder since he is now done with Coop and won't see his friends as much.

That afternoon, Joel came home early and we opened presents while baking pizza. He was a bit entranced by that presents, but still managed to show me how old he was.

He got instruments from Grandma Mary and Papa Randy. He is very much into sing songs and listening to music these days.

I will play this over and over when he gets older!

Since it was his birthday, he got his favorite kind of pizza...olive! Joel and I have tried to not influence Wally's eating by what we don't like, and this proves it is working. Neither of us will touch olives!

I don't know where this came from, but maybe when Grandma Mary and Papa Randy are up next, this can be their project.

He might be 4 years old, but he still eats like my 2 year old! The cupcakes we took to the Coop were supposed to be firetruck red with yellow flames on them. Pretty much looked like dark pink frosting with yellow blobs. Tasted alright though.

Just a normal rainfall for Iowa.

Gramma Kathy sent Wally some reusable camping stickers. His imagination certainly comes out with that (as does his tongue).

Joel makes fun of me because old pictures of me on my birthday always included one of me with my presents, always holding something in my mouth or with my chin. Maybe it is genetic.

On the Saturday following Wally's birthday, our church had a rummage sale. Wally used some of his money to by this hat with the propeller, a fire truck (that he loves that makes no noise and has no lights!), and an orange thing that he uses to "turn wool into yarn." Most people would use it to wind an extension cord. The church also had a pancake breakfast with a good will offering. Wally insisted on putting some of his birthday money in the can to "help people who don't have enough." Must say, I am a proud mom.

I chickened out this year, and didn't go for a 3-D cake like last year. I think it turned out pretty well anyway.

We decorated the house for Wally's birthday party. It is so hard these days to find traditional birthday supplies/decorations. Everything is based off of your favorite videos. We did manage to find some firefighter rubber duckies and tattoos.

Happy Birthday Wally!

Wally's party this year was very reminiscent of last year...play in water, eat pizza, eat cake...Wally's three favorite friends from Coop were here to celebrate, Althea, Joel, and Sander. Swinging is always fun, as is making your friends dizzy.

Three goofballs in the pool.

I think a table full of little ones is just about as cute as it can get.

Why can I not get Wally to look at the camera? Grrr!!!

Well, got him to look, even smile! Please ignore the mouth full of food!

Happy Birthday Wally!

I guess the kid got a good response from the first time he made the wish, or maybe it is what he really wants.

Wally was spoiled by his friends. But he did share the love.

He was given a race car kit. I was impressed with how well he painted.

Over the next few days, we ate the rest of the birthday cake. I so kindly let Wally eat the black wheels. As a note to parents, if you let your kid eat a lot of black food coloring, beware of toxic Kool-Aid blue poops!

Wally has been such a blessing over the last 4 years (can it really be that long?), and I can't wait to see what this year has in store for him...starting preschool, becoming a big brother, who knows!

Pre-Birthday Fun.

This is going to be a lot of random pictures just catching up.

Wally loves the dogs, especially Daisy.
Today, he connected Moosed a Daisy's collars to make one big collar, put it on Daisy, added Buzz Lightyear on her back and crawled under her. I'll try to get a picture up of that. She just stood there and took it.

Wally can even use his "X-ray vision" to look through Daisy!

Cicadas. So, they are supposed to only be around every 7 years, but they have been around every summer/fall since we've been here. They make an amazingly loud buzzing sound in the trees and they're huge. I've never noticed one flying, but they hang upside-down under tree branches and shed their shells that remain hanging. Wally and I enjoy finding them and sticking them to our clothing. Apparently, Chinese medicine uses the shells... Every once in a while we find a dead/dieing one on the ground. They are pretty amazing to look at.

We got Wally some floaty wings and star tube. It is so fun taking him swimming now because he can just splash all around by himself.

Pretty tough!

One day, Wally and I went blueberry picking at a local farm. I think we brought home about 5 that he picked, the rest went in his mouth. We will certainly do it again next year.

Joel found a feature with our webcam that identifies faces and then does funny things with them. One can identify the mouth and make the mouth really big. Others put hats on, or as in this picture put "cuss words" circling your head. He spent so much time messing with his appearance. It makes it hard to webcam though, a bit distracting.

Of course, Wally's favorite modification was pink hair!

We were heading to the lake for a picnic the other weekend when Wally says, "I want to go where we never go before." So, we went to the Coralville resevoir instead. We had a picnic on the rocks below the dam. It was neat hearing the water rushing out of the dam. I could imagine I was by the ocean.

There were also some really big fish, maybe brook trout, right by the shore. Too bad we didn't bring Joel's fishing pole!

Then we went for a brief walk (can't call it a hike) at a nearby veteran's trail. Along the trail are tributes/monuments to Iowa soldiers from all of America's wars (even the Civil War). The trail is paved/boardwalk and winds through the trees with several bridges. Even on a hot day, it wasn't too bad because of the shade.

At the end of the trail, there is a bird watching building with little windows that you can peak through at several bird feeders. There is a big bin of seed that anyone can use to refill the feeders. We didn't see a lot of birds, maybe because Wally was with us, but we did see several deer and a little fawn. They must be used to people, because they didn't move much when they saw us.

At the different plaques, Wally liked to teach. We would have to sit and he would give us a lesson while pointing at the plaques with a stick.

If you listen really closely, you can hear Wally over the birds and cicada's teaching Joel how to count in Spanish. Wally is very intrigued with different languages. I hope he can keep it up. We are going to miss his Spanish-speaking friends at the Coop when he starts preschool next month.

For my birthday, Joel got me a porch swing. It is great! Now the weather just needs to cool down so that we can enjoy it more.

We got Wally a slip'n'slide since he had so much fun at Gramma Kathy's with his cousins.

It was so hot, that even Dad joined in on the fun!

Yeah, so he's still trying to get the hang of doing the slip'n'slide.

Even things that we find to be a pain, Wally gets a kick out of. He just wishes he was big enough to wash the windows himself.

We've had bad luck trying to get the canoe out, as in it keeps raining on us. We managed to get it out the other weekend before a storm came in though.

It was great because there were lots of lily pads. I wish I had something in the picture for scale, because the flowers were probably about 12 inches in diameter.

Since the storm came in, we quickly paddled off the lake, loaded the canoe on the van, and watched as the sun came out and the storm was no where to be found. So, we went for a hike. I know this picture looks like it was taken in Montana, but it is actually in Iowa. Notice the nicely mowed grass wide enough for 2 cars.

It wasn't just nicely manicured at the trail head...mowed, the whole way. We saw lots of flowers and butterflies.

Stacy and I took the boys to a splash pad one morning. I hadn't heard of it before, and it is actually really close to our house and free!

That is baby Levi in the back ground. He is 10 months old.

Wally thought it was fun playing in the water with Levi. We'll have to do it again.