jedi knight in training...

Disclaimer-I swear this is my last post about my little boy's birthday.  I just can't help it.  Four years old.  Wow.  The fact that he's my baby only makes it harder.  I will stop whining now.

We ended Carter's big day with a special birthday dinner at steak 'n shake.  At the last minute we found out that my sister and her boys would be joining us, as well as Papa Jay.  Carter had a blast picking out his very own shake....Kool Aid Tropical Punch flavor??  (gross....but he seemed to love it). 

reading his card from papa jay

such seriousness...

such a handsome little man

all i have to say:

silly band heaven.

basically, if you don't understand what silly bands are then clearly you don't have kids, nieces, nephews..or are around children at all...because these things are like the jellybands and slap bracelets of my generation. 

they are seriously, seriously cool

(according to the kids)

personally, they annoy the heck out of me.  but we'll make that our little secret :)

I hope you always find this much joy in life

After dinner, we took the whole troop back to the house where

Carter finally got to open the rest of his presents from us....

 

tearing into his great BIG bag of goodies...

(with kj looking on of course...scouting out the toys she'll want to 'borrow' later)

a T-Ball Set!

Obi-Wan Kenobi and a Battle Droid (Carter calls him "roger, roger" because that's what they say constantly in the movies and the clone wars cartoons...really cute).  Since he got these presents, they are either in his hand or safely on the top of his dresser.  Honey..you get all the credit on this one.

and of course...if you're a little slow and haven't caught the theme yet...my little boy's first light saber.  I cannot tell you the excitement that was on that freshly four year old face.

i'm sitting here thinking of excuses, but the truth is our kids are just plain spoiled.  we decided that it was silly to just get one light saber...how can you train to be a jedi knight if you don't have two?  So...KJ got her first light saber, too, and for good measure, Ahsoka, her favorite female star wars character.  so spoiled.

can you help me pllleeease?
her doll eyes can melt you in a second...

first ligt saber fight of what I'm sure will be many more to come
crossing my fingers my children retain all their eyeballs...
a pirate child would be weird....just weird.

Carter was excited to use his new T-Ball set, so he put down his jedi knight training and we set up a whole field in our backyard, with a tree, bush and the jungle gym as bases...

honestly, this kid has a crazy strong arm for his age.  that ball was flying!  We are definitely signing him up for t-ball soon!  And really...is the cuteness not dripping?

Robbie, my oldest nephew, and basically Carter's idol gave him all kinds of advice about how it's done. 

Carter watched him like a hawk.

melt your heart kind of cute...

birthday hugs from the big sister

sometimes we all just need a minute in the grass...

our two magical babies

who are so lucky to have each other

our little spidermonkeys with legs that go on forever...

omg
precious

love, love, love

after exhausting themselves in the yard, mel and the boys took off for home, and we all sat down as a family to sing happy birthday to carter and love on our little man right up to the minute we tucked his tired body into bed and kissed him goodnight.

happy fourth birthday

we love you so much

and can't imagine a single day without your smile