Michael's Birthday

My sweet, smart, handsome firstborn turned five in January--can you believe it? Facebook keeps prompting me to view my memories for each day and showing me pictures of little baby Michael the adorable never-sleeper. His baby pictures all look like Colette and his toddler pictures all look like John Paul, and now he and Liam look so much alike sometimes. It's crazy.

Michael loves reading. That may be the understatement of the year, but I don't quite know how to put into words his passion for books. He was wildly delighted to receive some more of his beloved Magic Tree House books for his birthday. And spent all of his Christmas and birthday money to buy more. Thanks to another birthday present he has also branched out in the Hardy Boys. (Any recommendations for chapter books appropriate for a 5 year old but still pleasantly challenging for this crazy precocious reader are most appreciated!)

Michael told me he wanted an ice cream cake for his birthday again this year. I said that was fine, but did he want to consider any other options? He asked for all his options and I listed off as many fun desserts and I could think of. He kept asking for more options, and when I finally ran out of ideas he told me that the only thing that sounded good was an ice cream cake--so ice cream cake we had.

This boy. He loves reading his books. He loves writing to-do lists and recipes and stories in notebooks. He loves trains just as much as ever. He adores his baby sister (and for a 5 year old he's pretty dang patient and gentle with his brothers too).

Hoodlums

I don't know what it is about hoods, but the boys love them.

And Colette fits right in with the rest of the crew.

Michael has called her Colette Cynthia pretty consistently ever since we told the boys they were getting a little sister and what her name would be. Recently Liam has started calling her by her full name as well. For the first almost three months John Paul just called her "Baby," and it's only within the last month or so that he's started calling her "Kett." I didn't think anything could get more adorable than that, but about a week ago he started calling her by her full name as well--it comes out as "Kynthia" and I kind of hope he calls her that forever. It's the sweetest.