Wesley is FOUR

My sweet boy is 4-years-old today!

Wesley is a cool kid and we love having him in our family.

We call him Captain Bed Head.  His hair is AWESOME in the morning.

He was pretty excited for his birthday.  He couldn't wait to open his package from Grandma.

 For lunch we went to McDonalds and got Happy Meals -- a first in our family.

 After naps we had some friends over to help us eat these.

 Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Chocolate Frosting.  Mmmm!

 They were kind enough to bring a few gifts with them.

 And join us in singing to our birthday boy.

 Once again, Caleb was much more enthusiastic about these cupcakes than his own birthday cake.

 When Daddy got home Wesley got to open our gifts.

 

Then off to Portillos for dinner -- Wesley's choice.

 Yum!

A little about our birthday boy:



He loves the color brown.  His favorite animals are horses, lions, tigers and dogs.  He likes bad/fighting guys. The boys are doing karate this summer and he's really having fun with it.  He likes to "be strong." 

Sure he can be a little moody, but he can also be the sweetest boy.  He's just aware of others -- making sure he takes a second treat for Dillon, or waiting to do something fun until Daddy gets home.  I love my Wesley boy.  Glad he's party of our family.

Update on our 14 month old

This baby keeps getting bigger. And sweeter. I like him a lot right now. Everything he does is so darn cute! Here are some random shots of the last month or so. 

 He likes his big brothers. I love how he's right up in Dillon's face in this one!

He loves to explore.Whenever we're outside he checks to see if the van door has been left open so he can get in. He loves crawling around and pushing all the buttons.

 He also likes to put everything in his mouth, including sidewalk chalk. He loves walking around with this little bucket, dumping all the chalk out, and then putting it back in.

 He's learning to say prayers. It's so sweet. He folds his arms and starts his special jibberish, unique to prayers.

 Not much to say here, he's just awesome! He likes to wander off a little and just sit by himself. He'll also sit immediately if you pull out a snack, he definitely likes to be seated before he eats.

 Brothers

 He's really communicating these days and does a pretty good job letting you know what he wants. He will  yell and then pull me over to what he wants, or grab my legs and lurch up letting me know he wants to be picked up. He'll crawl on my lap and then make sure I know he'd like me to stand, etc. Pretty demanding, but I don't mind much. 

He's also started dancing more lately. He thinks dancing involves one arm waving since I like to pick him up and hold his one hand in a traditional dancing position. So he stomps with his feet while waving one arm when he hears upbeat music. Pretty awesome!

He's sweet. Today he just kept going up to Wesley and giving him a squeeze. Of course he stopped as soon as I pulled out the camera. He LOVES his two blankets and his bear, and likes to take them out with him after his nap. He's much more likely to snuggle with you if they're in tow.

I'm savoring every moment of this stage. It's my favorite!

Museum of Science and Industry

(Just realized I didn't post this, oops)

We're jumping right into summer around here.  One of our first stops was to the free day at our favorite museum.  We kept it short and sweet before Caleb completely fell apart. But we were able to see some fun stuff. Of course the highlight is always the trains!

It's always more fun to go with friends!

We even got to see baby chicks hatching.

Wesley could have watched them for hours.

Love Chicago and all the fun museums!

Can we get a dog?!

That is a question I hear a lot around here lately.  Outings like this don't help!

The weird thing is, I kind of want one too.  My family thinks I'm crazy and it'll be another while before we really seriously even consider getting one.  But one day, when we have a fenced in yard, we just might have to add a little friend to our family!

For now, this little guy fills all our puppy needs!

 

 He gets into the trash and chews on things...

...and, he's REALLY cute!

Nine Years of Bliss!

This was us ... nine years ago today!

And at our reception...

I'm so lucky to have been married to this amazing man for the last 9 years. He really is awesome. And I feel like we've done this whole marriage thing pretty well and think we compliment each other well. And we still have a lot of fun together. It's weird how you start to think and act alike and respond to situations the same way. I'm just really grateful he got on his knee, in a treehouse, 9 years and 4 months ago, and asked me to marry him. And I was really smart and said YES! I love you Aaron, more than anything in the world! Happy Anniversary! 

We celebrated with a night away in the city this last Friday. It was really fun. We walked the Magnificent Mile and did a little shopping and then went to Heaven on Seven for dinner. It's Southern Cajun style cooking and it was delicious! While we were eating, Conan O'Brien suddenly walked right behind Aaron as he was leaving the restaurant. We felt pretty cool that we had a celebrity sighting. We got to sleep in a little before Aaron had to get back to work and I had to get back to my suburb responsibilities :)  But it was nice to have a little "us" time. Thanks to our awesome friends that watched our kids!

With crazy, busy life, we haven't been able to do anything too exciting today. That is until we discovered this:

...a baby bunny trapped in the window well of our basement window. We talked through our options and obviously didn't do enough planning, because we ended up with this:

Yes, he got in! We tried to get him to go straight from the window well to a box, but he jumped right over it. Man, that little guy could hop! We chased him around for a while and finally got him cornered and into the box. Let's just say it was an eventful 1/2 hour -- an anniversary we'll never forget! I'm so proud of my manly husband for catching him!!!!

Dillon's First Piano Recital

This was Dillon's first year of piano lessons. I think he's done pretty well. His teacher had a baby in March, so we took a little break for a while. But another friend asked if we could join their recital. I'm so glad she did. It's so good for kids to have to perform in front of people.

 It was a nice small group of kids and they performed at an assisted living center -- such a great idea.

 Dill was excited to see some familiar faces!

 He played second on the program and he did pretty well. He performed "Twinkle Twinkle" which was a great song choice until a resident started singing along and it totally threw Dillon off. He got confused and embarrassed for just a moment until I helped him find his place on the keyboard again. Second time through his performance was flawless. We're proud of our Dill. He just keeps growing up.

 Notice the little brother in the back -- HE'S EVERYWHERE!

From the mouths of Four-year-olds

Toby:  I'm sweaty.

Wesley:  Who's sweaty?

Toby:  I am.

Wesley:  No you're not, you're Toby!

Love it!