Ian is 4!

Ian has the life. He is now 4-years-old, he had a great birthday and he has Darth Vader as a neighbor (in the form of his friend Blake).

He also likes to make contraptions with his sister (here is her water fountain, that unbelievably did not so much fountain as fall apart once water was added).

He likes to rock newspaper hats on his big day.

He has two beautiful sisters who are into accessories.

And one who wants to be a fashion designer -

who is the proud recipient of her Twinkle Trophy.

He is great at making paper robots and inspiring his sister to do the same.

He has a sister who wowed her friends on "crazy clothes day".

He thoroughly enjoyed his requested Chuck E. Cheese trip and was a little too busy for pictures.

He has a Dad who made him this pretty great Mario Brothers cake (Bridget is not shirking domestic responsibilities - for some reason Ian really wanted Justin to make his cake).

He has a great Grandma and Grandpa who took him to Build-A-Bear and helped him make his new buddy "Beach Bunny".

He is one of the most enthusiastic present-openers around and got some great gifts on his big day.

His favorite probably being a skateboard/scooter that it has been hard to extract him from ever since they first met.

He has some great candle-blowing out skills and after his first helping of cake he snuck back into the house and finished off all of the candy on top of the remaining cake.

Some of the things we want to remember about Ian on his 4th birthday are:

His favorite color is blue.
He loves anything that is "cool" which usually involves tricks of some sort.

His favorite show is Oswald.

His favorite song is "Kung Fu Fighting".

His favorite foods that don't contain large amounts of sugar are pizza, lasagna, pears, apples, waffles, French toast. His favorites that do are ice cream, candy, and cookies.

He is absolutely obsessed with Super Mario Brothers, robots, "contraptions," rockets, and building things.

He has a pretty incredible memory and will pull out information that we thought he hadn't heard a few weeks after the fact.
He has some great dance moves.
He is very tender hearted and is very compassionate when he sees that someone is hurt.

He is very independent and if you aren't watching closely he will help himself to cereal, pour his own milk, head outside to play without telling anyone, and generally help himself to whatever he thinks he needs.

He has a great sense of humor and is always making us laugh.

His sisters love him and are always asking for his approval. Rachel will always ask if her dress-up outfits are pretty and Josie is just perpetually following him around.

He loves our garden and is so excited about watching everything grow. Less excited about weeding, but hopefully that will improve over the summer.

We love him so much and are so glad that he is a part of our family!

** For his 4 year old check up on 8/1/11 he weighed 36 bls 8 oz (48%) and 210 inches (32%).