A Day to turn Five

The day finally arrived! Gavin anticipated his 5th birthday ever since Christmas, and was so excited he could hardly sleep the night before. No joke, he woke up at midnight and went downstairs just to see if I had wrapped his presents. I had to assure him that they would be ready to open in the morning, but that he had to sleep first. Well, I don't think he slept much because he was up at 6:00 am (if you wondered why he looked tired in the picture above...) Lexie made him a special birthday crown with a 5 on it, too.On a nostalgic note, I must take you on a journey over the last five years. Gavin is such a sweet, happy boy. This is the day he was born, and I love this picture because he has a smile on his face. He was my easiest delivery and my most mellow child. He is a delight to have in our family.At age 1, Gavin was already tinkering. He loved to hang out with Danny in the garage and "work on the dirtbike." He loves copying his dad and trying to be like him. His innate engineering ability is continuing to manifest itself, as he figures out how to makes things work or put them together by himself (sometimes when I don't want him to!) Here's Gavin at age 2. He has an infectious giggly-laugh. At this age, especially, he would just start to laugh because he was so happy. Just because! It was such a sweet time.Gavin really likes to get into a certain thing and just go with that for quite a while. He loved Elmo when he was two, like all our kids have, and then he really loved Curious George. Shortly after that he became fascinated with dogs, thus the third birthday puppy party. He then really got into dinosaurs and now dragons and Bionicles. He really has always loved sharks and reptiles, you know--the fierce, uncuddly sort of animals. But the little scientist in him is so fascinated by them.
And here is Gavin last year at four years old. He has grown and learned so much in the last year. He is constantly asking why or how things work and perpetually discovering information about the world around him. In 2009 he learned to ride a bike without training wheels and moved onto big-boy experiences.
Back to this year's birthday: as soon as Mom and Dad crawled out of bed and got everyone downstairs, we let him dig into his presents. Thanks to Grandma and Grammy and our other family, he had lots to open!
I try to decorate around the kids' chairs in the kitchen so they have a special place to sit when it's their birthday. Here's Gavin's set up after his special-request breakfast of scrambled egg sandwiches on English muffins. He got Legos and Bionicles and he was in assemble-it heaven all day.
We went out to eat at Applebee's for an early dinner before Danny's night class, then we had cake when Danny got home. My project for the day was to create a special cake just for my five-year old. Gavin loves dragons (and got one from Lexie for his birthday,) so the chocolate dragon was born. (I used fruit roll-ups for the spikes and wings.) He was thrilled.
I had to throw a picture in of Cole really digging into the cake. He makes a nice mess when he eats and loves to mush his hands in it. We are all glad we could celebrate Gavin's 5th Birthday with him. I can't believe he is growing up so much. We love you, Gavin.