Matthew's 4th Birthday

Matthew had his 4th birthday before New Years. We had all of the family over for Sunday dinner of Matthew's choosing: Mickey Mouse pasta and cheese, steamed broccoli, baked chicken, salad, and breadsticks. Matthew was so excited to open presents that he could hardly wait until after dinner.

Between Christmas and birthday, Matthew got really good at opening presents, including using his scissors to remove any ribbon.





Matthew is not one to hide his emotions in any way (good or bad). When he was opening presents, he was quick to show excitement for each new toy.





As usual, Julie went all out in making a cake. Matthew asked for a three-dimensional Thomas the Train cake, but we convinced him to save that one for his friend birthday party. Instead, Julie offered to put the Wonder Pets' heads on a cake (in case you are missing out on Wonder Pets, you can see an online episode here). Julie bought the 1/2 sheet cake with the white frosting, but she traced on the heads to the fronting with a toothpick and then added the color fronting stars on top. With all of those colors she ended up spending at least 5 hours working on all of it.



Matthew was so happy to have everyone singing to him and to get to blow out his candles.





We can't believe that it's already been 4 years since Matthew was born. It seems like only yesterday that he was born and spent that entire first night awake with Jon watching replays of bowl games on ESPN. We are so glad to have Matthew in our family and we love to watch him grow and to see his dynamic personality as it develops.