Birthday Party #4

Lucas's 4th birthday party was held on Saturday, June 18th, a couple of days after his actual birthday. We held it at our house for possibly the last time since he may want to start having it at other locations after this year, but for now, we're happy with the convenience. Wow, that just made me realize this was his last birthday party before he is in school. Time flies...

The party started off with a craft. Since the party's theme was Batman, Marilu used her Cricut scrapbooking machine to make little Batman badges that the kids could glue together.


I love this shirt.


Afterwards, some of the kids played around the house with Lucas's vast collection of toys. Honestly, he has enough toys to fill a couple of daycare centers. Other kids played in the backyard as evidenced by this picture of Lucas and his friend Ryan. Lucas knows Ryan from daycare, and I would say he's as close to a best friend as Lucas has. Luckily, they will be in the same class this fall.


Next up was lunch. Of course, Lucas had to ham it up for the camera.



Here's the cake Marilu made. What a great job!


Blowing out the candles...


....and then eating as messily as possible.



There weren't any fantastic present opening pictures, but since it's a birthday party, I feel obligated to put at least one in so here you go.


All in all, it was a good party, and I think everyone had a fun time. Many, many thanks to my mom for taking these pictures since Marilu and I were too busy hosting to focus on camera duties.

FYI, today is Lucas's last day of full day daycare. His daycare provider does a teacher's schedule, and since Marilu's last day of school is today, Lucas will be home until fall. Then, when daycare starts back up, he'll only be there in the morning and afternoon since he'll be in junior kindergarten. As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, where the heck has the time gone? Next thing we know, he'll be going to prom and heading to university.

I'll be posting all the birthday pictures to my Picasa online photo albums shortly so I'll post a link to that in the next entry.

In case I don't post this weekend, Happy Canada Day and Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Lucas Turns 4!

My mom left yesterday, but before she went, I was able to download over 100 pictures from her visit to my computer. There are lots of good pictures from his birthday and the subsequent party so the next 2-3 posts will likely be devoted to that.

Before I get to that, I wanted to relate a funny little story from earlier today. For some reason this morning, Lucas used the word "ass." I can't imagine where he learned THAT word. Anyway, I told him that "ass" was a bad word and that he shouldn't be using it. However, I then corrected myself and said that using "ass" when talking about people was bad, but if you used it instead of the word "donkey," it was ok. So this afternoon, when Marilu got home, I asked Lucas to tell her what he learned about words today. He thought about it for a moment and then said, "Ass with people is bad but ass with donkey is good." Ah, the apple of my eye.

This first batch of photos is from Lucas's actual birthday, June 16. In the first shot, he's about to check out a Harry Potter sticker book. He doesn't have any idea who HP is, but it's stickers, so that's all good in his world.


I'm not sure how well you can see his face here (click the photo for a bigger version), but that is nothing short of "ecstatic" written on his face. In his defense, the present was in a pretty big bag.


In case you are wondering, this is what the present was. Marilu and I bought him a big Playmobil pirate ship. He's become a huge fan of Playmobil toys, and his birthday definitely added to his collection. Besides this pirate ship, he got a ghost pirate ship and a large dragon.


Afterwards, we had dinner at Lone Star, which was his choice of restaurant. He took the time out of his busy schedule to pose with all of us.




Up next: the birthday party!

Birthday Photos (well, sort of)

It appears I misspoke in my last entry. I can't post any pictures from Lucas's 4th birthday since, quite simply, we didn't take any. We didn't have anything official for him since his party is on Saturday so I guess it never occurred to us to take pictures. I do believe my mom got some on her camera, but I haven't used her camera before so downloading those pictures will have to wait until I can figure it out.

In the meantime, here are a couple of pictures from June 14th, when Lucas got his birthday present from his godfather Jason in the mail. So technically, it's birthday related. Enjoy!

Four!

Yesterday, June 16, was Lucas's 4th birthday. I planned to post some pictures of the event, but it turned out to be a busy day so I didn't get a chance. I'll try to get something up before the end of today. Also, his actual birthday party is on Saturday so there should be many more photos after that.

Seems like just yesterday he was born, huh?

Soccer!

A couple of Sundays ago, Lucas had his first soccer practice. Thus far, it's a cross between the last thing he did, a soccer playgroup mishmash, and the next step, playing on an actual team. The kids get out there, do some soccer drills and fun stuff, and then play a mini-scrimmage at the end (2 on 2).

The thing that makes this MUCH better than his previous soccer attempt is that one parent has to play alongside each kid. If you recall, Lucas is extremely shy so shoving him out on the field and sitting on the sidelines watching was not an option. And if I have to be out there playing with him, I'm glad everyone else does as well.

His shyness is still rearing its ugly head during the scrimmage as he wouldn't go near the other kids to try to get the ball, let alone score. However, he does pretty well at the drills and games (such as Red Light, Green Light with a soccer ball). I wasn't watching the other kids playing, but Marilu assured me that plenty of other kids were just as shy as Lucas so I'm not sending him off to the psychiatrist just yet.

Anyway, a picture is worth a thousand words and all that, so here are some pictures from the first session.

Woohoo! Wheelbarrow races! In case you are wondering why I am in jeans and almost everyone else is in shorts, we had a birthday party before this, and it looked like it was going to be a cool day. Lucky me that the weather turned and I got to play soccer in the middle of a hot afternoon wearing jeans and a dark shirt.


Lucas comes over for a water break.


It looks like Lucas is stretching here, but if I recall correctly, he was just rolling around on the grass during the aforementioned water break.


This is Marilu's favorite picture from the day since he looks intense in this head on action shot.


More action as he practices his ball dribbling skills. He's actually not that bad.


Whew! All done for the day. Now just a whole summer of Sundays to go!