Birthday Wishes and Shopping Cart Dreams!

Last week was Quinton's last week as a 3 year old and the start of his life as a 4 year old.

How the time flies!

Here is Quinton, heading out for the first day of his new preschool on Monday.

He really enjoys his friends in preschool and his teacher, Miss Gabbi.

Matt wanted to do something special and memorable for Quinton's birthday. Matt woke Quinton and I up at about 6am to go and watch the sunrise over the beach.
You might ask yourself why, but why not?
How many sunrises do we get up early for in our lifetime?
Not too many that I can remember.

And Quinton loved it. I thought Quinton would have been a little grumpy about being woken up but he was really excited.

The awe in his expression when he saw the sun first peek over the horizon was priceless.
It was totally worth waking up early for and it made Quinton's birthday very special!
The three of us freezing our buns off on the windy shore of Lake Michigan.

How do you top off a morning sunrise?

A pink donut, of course!

And a sausage biscuit.

And hashbrowns.

And hot chocolate.

Suprisingly, Quinton can pack it away!

After preschool, I had balloons and one of Quinton's birthday presents waiting for him. Just like a kid, though, he was more excited by the balloons than the actual present (toys).

That evening, we took Quinton to his all-time favorite eatery....

You guessed it, Chuck E. Cheese's!

Matt and I really enjoyed watching Quinton play and goof off...Quinton seems to have become what we like most in each other.

So this is the day after:

Quinton had SO much fun on Wednesday, he fell asleep in the car and when I took him out to go shoppping at Costco, he wouldn't wake up. So I made him a little bed in the cart and walked through the aisles at a LEISURELY pace. I daresay I was the envy of every mom with kid(s) in the store!

Saturday, we whooped it up all over again!

Quinton has been talking about his "Shamu Birthday" for almost a year now. However, if you have ever put together any kids party, you may know that there is not a lot of shamu-themed birthday gear out there, so I had to be a little inventive...

Although bouncy houses are all the rage at birthday parties these days, we opted to let the kids play on our trampoline. With the net surrounding the trampoline, it's actually a great way to exercise crowd control.

I know Shamu eats a variation of sushi but we gave the kids hot dogs instead.

I doubt any of the kids would have wanted to feel like they were eating fresh Nemo in seaweed!

Ooh, Ooh!

See the Shamu hannging in the air???

Yep, I found that on the internet, pretty sweet, eh?

And what says "Shamu" more than tye die?

I braved eleven 3 to 5 year olds and chose tye dying as our activity du jour.

So we stripped the kids down and threw garbage bags on them to keep them from becoming too dyed. It had a funny effect, though, all of the kids ran around acting like ghosts so it almost felt like a HALLOWEEN party!

I have to say that as messy as it was, the kids loved making their tye die shirts.

I sure hope they enjoy wearing them, too!

Growing up, my mom was awesome at making cakes. Matt's mom is awesome at making cakes, too, but I, unfortunately, do not have the gift of cake making.

But I can follow instructions in a lovely cupcake book and make some adjustments to the original shark cupcakes to make them fit our theme...

VOILA!

The SHAMU cupcake!

(insert your applause here)

A closeup of the awesomeness...

I just think this is a cute present-opening picture of Q.

He received this book from his Great Grandmother Dorothy, who knew exactly what to give to Quinton. We have about warn out our library card borrowing this book alone.

I Stink! by Jim and Kate McMullan is a great book and one we would highly recommend.

Matt and I love to celebrate the birth of Quinton and how big he is now!

Thank you to all of our family and friends who shared with us our joy in celebrating his life!