For some reason FOUR was a lot harder for me to fathom than three was? I feel like a four year old is like a legit kid. There ain’t no baby left!!!
Kye’s birthday was March 4th and fell on a Monday this year, which was great because he only goes to school Tues-Thur. I like having the entire day to devote to him and make it fun from start to finish! Our little family tradition is to wake up each child on their birthday by singing “Happy Birthday” to them. Kye has been obsessed with turning four because it means he gets to move up to the four year old class at school in August. Haha. It was so funny when we walked in singing to him and he told us to stop because he wanted to tell us about the four year old class. Here’s the video of Kye waking up as a FOUR year old!!!
Zach was super sweet and got up a little early for work to make Kye a birthday waffle, complete with whip cream!
During Britt’s nap time that morning I told Kye we could do anything he wanted to do and he really wanted to use the new paint brushes that Casey and Jordan got him for his birthday to paint a picture for G-Mama so that’s what we did 🙂
The sun with a rainbow!
After painting he, of course, wanted to watch a movie. I thought it’d be a fun treat to bring his big bean bag chair down from the playroom upstairs to use during movie time. He also brought a new toy fire truck (I bought it at a used kids sale and didn’t wanna hassle wrapping it for his birthday…how would you wrap that thing?)
Mighty Machines is his hardcore favorite right now!
For lunch I told him he could have anything he wanted and he chose a peanut butter and chicken nugget sandwich (I put four separate nuggets on each little section of sandwich), fruit, yogurt, veggie drink, and his milk in his hydrant cup from the party.
After naps both kids had swim lessons (super mega long post coming eventually covering each child’s lessons!) which worked out great. Kye LOVES swim and he was so excited to get to see Mrs Margie on his birthday 🙂
For his birthday he got to pick anywhere he wanted to eat. For the LONGEST time he said he wanted to eat Red Lobster but a few days prior to the big day he changed his mind and picked Chick-Fil-A. It’s totally not like him to change his mind once he decides something but Zach and I were totally happy with the switch b/c CFA is waaaay cheaper 😉 Zach was able to make it home from work early enough to watch both kids swim which was an extra special treat!
We went to a different Chick-Fil-A than normal since it was closer to swim, and it was the first time Britt has really gotten to PLAY in the little playground area! NO ONE else was there so we got to play and play and play before getting our food 🙂
Another Birthday Treat: I let Kye bring his hydrant cup with us to dinner 🙂
Once we got home it was PRESENT time!
My dad and Audrey had sent their present in time for Kye to open it at his party but I like to save gifts from out of town to open on the actual birthday. Party present opening is INSANE and we enjoy our little family together time on the actual birthday so much more 🙂
They sent him an ADORABLE Lightning McQueen birthday card (his favorite card by far especially since we are cheap cheap and buy some from the 99 cent section!) and they bought him a Hallmark Read Along Storybook. I couldn’t get over it. Seriously. It is the best present anyone has ever bought for either of my kids. It meant SO much to me. Then when we played it and my dad started it off by singing a bit of the song he used to sing to me every night…that was when I totally melted down in tears! It was SUCH a thoughtful gift (which I know is a lot of credit to Audrey for sure!) and it meant so much to me that they sat down together and Dad read each page like he did. My kids don’t get to see my dad often and because of this book they hear him all the time and feel close to him. Kye has started talking about Grandpa much more often and has listened to the story book over and over and over again. He loved it, and it meant more to me than words can even begin to describe!
Yes, Dad did both character’s voices! It’s pretty awesome 🙂 He always signs stuff “Grandpa Dave” but our kids just call him Grandpa so don’t be confused by that haha! When I posted this picture on Instagram a bunch of people commented and talked about how much their read along books have meant to them and their children. Multiple people also said that they have had issues with the books and some have stopped working all together. Um, that would CRUSH Kye (well…actually it’d crush ME probably way more than it even would him!). So I felt mega lame but decided I would record the entire book on a video. That way just in case anything ever happens to the book itself, we’ll at least have a video of it. You can see it here!
As yall know our kids are rather sheltered. They don’t watch tv so they don’t see commercials for toys and things. Kye is at a SUPER hard age to buy for. I feel like he already has everything he could possibly want or need haha. When I would ask him what he wanted he didn’t even really know of anything to want (which I think is a wonderful thing…I like that he isn’t a kid who is constantly begging and whining for new things) so I pulled up the ToysRUs website on my Ipad and we looked at things together and thought of ideas for him. It surprised me that he was super drawn to the simple wooden Melissa and Dog sets of vehicles and things. I love the classic toys!
Since he loves to work with Daddy and especially because he has been obsessed with raking stuff up we knew this was a must have present!
One thing Kye did RANDOMLY mention was that he wanted a Thomas firetruck. It was SO funny because when I couldn’t find the firetruck train he wanted for Christmas I actually went ahead and bought him some random Thomas brand fire truck and planned to give it to him if I couldn’t track down the one he really wanted. So I already had the Thomas firetruck choo choo ready to go (btw…I don’t get the Thomas hype. That dang choo choo doesn’t even fit his tracks!)
His big gift was a tackling dummy I found from FSU. I was browsing the FSU site with him and he saw it and really wanted it! We had it all blown up and Zach thought of the idea of hiding it and telling Kye to put on his helmet and then come down the hall to tackle and when he came down the hall he’d see the guy and tackle him. Here’s a video of him! Since his Birthday we have named the tackle guy “Bruce” and not only does Kye LOVE to tackle him but so does Britt. Haha It’s hilarious and a GREAT way for them to get out energy!!!
The majority of Kye’s gifts came from the kids sales I go to. He seriously doesn’t know the difference if toys and such are used! Who cares, right? Last year Kye got a bike for his birthday. I did TONS of research and Mrs Charlotte actually ended up buying him one of those glider bikes that don’t have any pedals. Supposedly they are gonna be the “new thing” and will eventually phase out bikes with training wheels all together. Well. Kye couldn’t ever really balance on it too well? I felt super bad b/c it wasn’t cheap but we are still keeping it so I’m sure some kid down the line will put it to good use! I was at a kids sale and saw a Lightning McQueen bike for only $15. And it looks BRAND NEW. I actually just saw a bike almost just like this one at Target for $60 so I’m pretty pumped about the deal I scored 🙂 We also surprised Kye with the bike…here’s that video!
All of his presents (minus the bike and Bruce). I know I’ve had some people ask before for gift ideas for their kids close in age to mine so here’s a run down of what we got for him: Melissa and Doug firetruck set, Melissa and Doug tractor set, garden tool set (metal!), Thomas firetruck, Thomas book (which I got for free!), Captain hook boat (I had coupons and ended up getting this for only $2!), pirate costume from kids sale, Lightning McQueen slippers from kids sale, flying Lightning Mcqueen (it was “from Britt” and I got it for free), football hat, football cleats from kids sale, Brio brand train construction set (it works with his other wooden tracks). I spent under $100 total for all of his presents! I know it may seem silly to give him used slippers as a gift but we try not to give our kids random things through out the year so they get more stuff on holidays and I figured why not wrap up stuff like that too? He had a great day and has enjoyed every gift!
I guess our frugalness is rubbing off…I told Kye he could choose what we did for his birthday cake. We could do donuts or make a cake, whatever he wanted. He chose to eat more of the cake from his party! It was SOOOO good so I def don’t blame him on that one 😉 Here’s the video of us singing happy birthday to him! It’s pretty hilarious how I’m the only one singing at first haha
Since Britt didn’t have any cake at the party we let her have a little piece!
Perfect way to end a perfect day!
I think Kye for sure had a special day! He has already told me that he wants to have everyone eat pizza with him again after his party next year and wants to have his birthday dinner at Chick-Fil-A again…sounds like a plan to me 🙂
Here are the birthdays of years past:
2nd birthday part 1 and part 2
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I just can't get over how grown up he looks! He is SO HANDSOME!