Tulip Festival

 We went to the Woodburn Tulip Festival on Spencer's actual birthday.  The weather was nice and the place was packed, but there were about 3 times more tulips than we saw last year.  I guess we were too early last spring.  Anyway, they were stunning this year.  If only the moles didn't keep eating all of my bulbs so I could have tulips in my yard!  grrrr.

 

Spencer was really excited to ride the cow train again.  He also liked the bumpy slide (ouch!) and the rain gutter pumps.  I don't think we had quite as much fun as we did last year, simply because we had done it before.  It was still a fun afternoon though and Spencer said it was a good birthday activity.

 

Spencer's Favorites

Spencer's current favorite thing to do is play with the neighborhood kids.  They all congregate in our next-door neighbor's (Erin's) yard and will play for hours.  Sometimes he's sad that I won't let him go out and runs back and forth between our upstairs windows that offer a view of the kids.  (I don't know how the other parents have time to sit around outside for 3-4 hours every day.)  His best friends right now are Erin, Macy and Kyler.  He sees Erin a lot because she comes over twice a week while her parents are gone.  Macy and Kyler are in his preschool and primary classes.

Car's Eye Guys are still his very favorite toys and he currently has 32 of them.  It's getting pretty hard to find new ones that he doesn't have yet.  He hardly ever plays with this trains anymore.  Spencer likes basketball and soccer and we're planning to sign him up for little league in the fall.  He still insists on riding his bike without the pedals on so it's just like a balance bike.  I encourage him to try it sometimes, but one thing I've learned about Spencer is that he does things when he's ready.  I occasionally get worried about some skill that he hasn't developed, but he always picks them up on his own timetable.

Spencer has gotten much better at eating dinner without complaining lately.  I think it's due in part to our studying a new country each week or two and then cooking ethic food from that country.  He loves cold cereal, most fruits, crackers, cheese, raw veggies (especially broccoli, bell peppers and jicama), plain chicken and almost every breakfast food.  Spencer's favorite dessert is ice cream.  Neapolitan is his favorite flavor at the moment. 

Spencer still really loves preschool.  His writing has improved a ton the past couple of months.  He actually enjoys writing now and will do it for fun sometimes.  His reading is getting quite good too.  He doesn't read to me much, but I'm always surprised at the words he knows when he does.  He gave a talk in primary today and read almost every word by himself.  His was so confident and spoke very clearly.  He really did a great job!  Spencer is thrilled to be starting kindergarten in the fall and I'm in the process of filling out all of the paperwork. 

We still have story time and quiet time after lunch every day.  I LOVE reading to him and will be so sad when he can't sit on my lap in our glider anymore.  We check out a big stack of books from the library every week and read his favorites again and again.  That's my favorite time of day.  Quiet time has evolved into play-by-yourself-time.  It's usually not very quiet, but does give me time to get a few things done.

Spencer's favorite color is purple.  He is quite particular about his clothes and I can't buy shirts without his approval anymore.  He likes shirts with pictures on the front so it's easier to find the front when he's getting dressed.  He prefers "snuggly" pants (sweat) and fuzzy socks.

Alan and Spencer are still best buddies.  The hour after dinner and before bed is their special play time.  It usually involves "back and forth running games" upstairs, tickle tackling, and lots of other wild silliness.  I love listening to them while I clean up the kitchen.

Whew!  I could probably think of more, but I'll stop there.  I don't want to get sentimental tonight because I've been on the verge of tears all afternoon thinking about how soon my only baby will be off to school.  I love that little boy so much and can't believe how lucky I am to be his mother.  He brings both Alan and I so much joy.

5 - More of the Celebration

I tried to convince Spencer to have Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner, but he insisted that he wanted homemade pizza (I guess I should be flattered!).  So, I had to start making pizza as soon as the party was over.  After a yummy dinner, he got to open his family presents and cards.  

Grandma LeFevre spoiled him with Car's stuff.  Two new cars, a hat and wall decals.

Maybe Alan wants one of these for his birthday too!

Spencer got lots of nice cards from Grandmas and Grandpas and Aunts and Uncles.  I was surprised when he just started reading them by himself.  He's rarely willing to read to me so I never know exactly where is reading level is.  He did awesome with the cards and read almost every word by himself.  Thank you everyone for the very nice gifts and cards!

 I got a little crafty and made him this fleece tie blanket.  It turned out cute and cuddly and he loves it on his bed.

5 - The party

My baby turned 5-years-old yesterday!  We decided the throw a friend birthday party for him this year mostly because he was really excited about having one.  It was a lot of work, but I'm so glad I did it.  Spencer's excitement in planning and preparing for the party was priceless.  He could hardly talk about anything else for weeks.  I think he had just as much fun the week before the party as he did at the actual celebration.  We invited 7 kids - his whole preschool class and our next-door neighbor.  Eight kids was a lot for our little house.  It was a crazy party, but there were no meltdowns and I think everyone had fun.  Here are a lot of pictures:

He insisted on helping frost the cake so I had to let go of some of my control-freak, perfectionist tendencies.  It was good for me and Spencer was completely thrilled with the finished product.  It was a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting.  We used crushed oreos for the asphalt and banana laffy taffy pieces for the lines on the road.

Spencer's main present from Alan and I was this blue 18-foot race track.  It's an awesome toy because kids can really use their imaginations to configure the flexible plastic in a million different ways.  And, you can use it inside and out.  We're going to have fun with this one.  We let Spencer open it early so we could use it at the party.  Each kiddo got to open a wrapped Hot Wheels car to use on the race track at the beginning of the party.

Pinterest took all of the creative work out of planning a party for me.  It was awesome!  Our next game was Sally, Sally, King (aka duck, duck, goose).  This one was a hit.

They all liked running through the "car wash" in our entry way.

We headed out to our backyard to play Red Light, Green Light, but the trampoline was way more popular than the game.  I didn't realize how muddy it was back there though, and everyone came back in with muddy pants and shoes.

Watching him open presents was hilarious.  The kids were all so excited that they kept crowding around him.  Spencer kept moving to a different couch or place on the floor to try to get some space, but they just mobbed him wherever he went.  He eventually wound up on the floor behind the couch by the backdoor before I finally had to step in and ask the kids to give him some room.  They were all so cute and excited to see him open their present.  Spencer got rather spoiled by a lot of very nice gifts.

 

 Next we did an obstacle course with these box cars I made.  I have to say that I think they turned out pretty cute and they weren't that hard.  It would have been more fun outside, but I didn't want to brave the mud again so we made it work in the house.  The kids all liked this game too.

Last, it was crazy free time at Spencer's request. 

 I love these group pictures!  These kiddos are all so crazy and fun.  I'm so glad that Spencer has a good group of friends.

More birthday fun posts to come...

Superhero Cowboy

I occasionally watch a friend's 3-year-old little girl in the afternoon.  Spencer and I love it when K. comes over because she plays so differently than we normally do.  She's a total girly, girl and always wants to play dress-up.  Spencer is quite inexperienced with dress-up and I thought these pics of his Superhero Cowboy outfit were funny.  At least the superhero cape that I slaved over a couple of years ago is finally getting some use.

Conference Weekend

Like usual, we watched the Saturday sessions of General Conference on the computer at our house, then spent all day Sunday at Darwin and Debbie's.  Spencer has been using the same two Conference bingo cards for a couple of years now, but he never gets tired of them.  I spent hours making a game board for a different game, but he had no interest in it.  Maybe next time.  (Note to self: Spencer doesn't need a piece of candy to cover each square on the board.  He's perfectly happy using toys or coloring them in and just getting candy for bingos.)

Grandma Rasmussen is awesome at entertaining Spencer during Conference.  She played with him the whole time and it was so nice for me to be able to concentrate on the talks.  Thanks Debbie!  Here they are cheering for a bingo.

Best buddies.

It was such an uplifting, relaxing weekend.  I love Conference!

Spring in our front yard

I've been spending a lot of time in our backyard lately while Spencer plays with the neighborhood kids.  I don't have many flowers yet, but these made me happy last week.  It's a good thing I got a picture of the blossoms when I did though because it rained hard for several days right after I took it and now the ground is covered with white petals.  It almost looks like it snowed and makes a huge mess on my floors. :)

Easter Eggs

The Easter Bunny visited our house on Saturday afternoon this year.  Alan was working in the morning and I told Spencer that the bunny couldn't come until daddy was home.  Spencer is such a believer and asked me questions about the Easter Bunny all morning.  It's fun that it's so magical to him, but how do I balance that magic with honesty?  I had to get creative with a few of his questions. :)  Our Easter bunny just left a few eggs with candy and one with a Car's eye guy in the backyard.  Spencer doesn't need anymore than that for complete happiness.

It turned out to be an almost hot day and was lovely Easter weather.  Spencer spent a couple of hours playing outside with the neighborhood kids and then we went to a new park.  I guess he was pretty worn out by the time we got there though because he was NOT excited about the 1/2 mile hike we tried to do.  Alan carried him most of the way.

 We didn't tear ourselves away from the awesome weather in time to decorate eggs before Easter, so we wound up doing them after Church on Easter Sunday.  Spencer thought it was pretty cool to write secret messages with a white crayon on them and was disappointed that the egg he put in every color cup turned out to be an ugly greenish brown.

We finished up our Easter with a nice dinner with Alan's Dad and Grandparents.  Debbie was out of town this year so I did the ham.  It was my first time doing the ham and I was a little nervous, but all of the leftovers in my freezer are worth it!  Everyone else helped bring side dishes and dessert so it wasn't very hard at all for me.  We're so blessed to live close to family!  Happy Easter!