Today we are celebrating our baby boy turning 4!  Wow…it is so hard to believe it has been 4 years since his crazy, surprising birth.  If you have never read his story, here is the link to Ethan’s Story.  You would never be able to tell that our 42 pound 4 year old ever spent 17 days in the NICU.  🙂  This kid loves to eat and will eat just about anything!  We celebrated Ethan’s birthday last week with a friend party at Chuck-E-Cheese.  He had a few of his preschool friends and his cousins and had so much fun!  In fact, when I told him yesterday that he was going to turn 4 today, he looked at me and informed me that he was already 4 because he had already had his birthday party. Typical Ethan. 🙂

Ethan just finished his 2nd year of preschool.  He was in the 3s class this year and really learned a lot. He know most of his letters and can almost write his name by himself.  He’s so close!  He loves to color and can stay in the lines.  We often get his artwork confused with Seth’s.  However, he did struggle a bit this year with his behavior.  He is a rough, aggressive little boy and at times, he didn’t know when to stop and control himself at school. I think it comes from being the youngest of 3 boys but it is still something we are working on. I can’t believe he is headed to the Pre-K 4’s next year and then on to Kindergarten!  Time goes so fast!

Here are some more things about Ethan at 4 years old:

• He is by far our best eater.  He will eat most any fruit or vegetable.  However, he is also a HUGE snacker.  I struggle with him in the afternoon because he wants to eat constantly.
• He still loves Mickey Mouse.  It is his favorite show to watch and his favorite character.  I had to convince him to change up his birthday theme this year since it would have been our 3rd year with a Mickey Mouse cake.
• His favorite color is red.  He LOVES red.  He picks red for everything – shoes, shirt, shorts, hats, etc…  If he has a choice he is picking red (all because of Mickey Mouse).
• He loves to “read” books.  He’ll sit down with a book and read it to himself for quite a while before he finds me to read it to him.
• He is still a big snuggler.  He loves to sit in our laps whenever he can.  He also still likes to be carried (getting hard at 42+ pounds!)  He gave up his Pappi (pacifier) and Baby (lovey) about 4 months ago but still occasionally asks for his pappi (especially when he is really tired).
• He loves to boss Molly Kate around. I guess he is excited to finally be the older brother.  He is constantly telling her where to go, where to sit, what to play, etc…  He tells me that they are playing little sister and Molly Kate has to listen to him.  She loves it (most of the time). 🙂

We are so blessed to have this wild, crazy boy in our life!  Happy Birthday, Ethan!!

On the floor getting ready to wrestle with Daddy.  Fierce!

Opening his presents from Grandma and Grandpa.

Best buddies!

Dancing with Chuckie!

CHEESE!

Inside the ticket blaster.

This was seriously the best part.  His face was hilarious.  He still says this was his favorite part.  I don’t know if he caught a single ticket but he had fun!

Birthday picture with Daddy this morning.

Birthday picture with Mama (as he still calls me). 🙂