Soren's 4th Birthday

My little boy is growing up on me. On January 1st, 2011, he turned four years old. We had our usual family shindig to celebrate. Grandma and Grandpa Hanson, the Smiths ("Clee, Marty, and The Kids"), Uncle Quentin ("Nano"), and Haunties Briar and Merritt came to celebrate.

I know it's hard to believe that I have such mad artistic skillz, but I actually made this poster myself. Freehand.

Soren wanted a "Max" cake. Auntie Merritt did the drawing and I added the worms myself. Freehand.

The thing Soren was looking forward to the most on his birthday this year was the cake candles. He got them out early in the day and spent a good amount of time making them walk around and talk to each other. He inserted them into the unfrosted cake, he pushed them into the frosted-but-undecorated cake, and--at long last--he was able to place them in the finished product.

Auntie Briar lit the candles and everybody sang.

The Birthday Boy blew out the candles while we were singing, so we had to re-light them and try again.

There were balloons everywhere, courtesy of Soren's daddy, who used his manly lung capacity to blow up about thirty of them. Liam LOVED the balloons.

Just thought this pic of Collette, Marty, and Tessa was cute.

Arielle took most of the pictures. She and Abraham decided to put together an avant-garde shot of the streamers. I feel that this shot says a lot about the increasing isolation of the modern man.
(Streamers twisted and strung by Auntie Briar and Uncle Quentin.)

For gifts, Soren pretty much received trucks from everyone. He was delighted. (A little too delighted-- he got a pretty insane during the gift opening and started throwing boxes and gifts around like a rabid monkey.) Cousin Marty--his idol and favorite playmate--gave him one of his own trucks and a toy gun. (Funny story about the gun: Marty called me that morning to ask if it was okay if he gave Soren the gun--isn't that sweet?-- but I thought he said "gum," and so I was like, "Oh yeah! sure! That's great!" But then it was a gun, which I was fairly tranquil about, until Soren started talking about killing people with it. He seemed pretty confused when we tried to talk to him about why that wasn't okay, so we decided to put it away until he can more easily grasp basic moral principles.)

Grandma and Grandpa also gave him a cool rug for his bedroom with streets on it for his trucks to drive on. He's taken to locking himself in his bedroom for long periods of time to play with all his trucks on his new rug.

All in all, it was a pretty happy birthday.