Aussie Mum In The Kitchen: The BIG 4!

This past Thursday my baby turned the big 4! Because we only have one and we love that one SO much we decided this year to celebrate Gabe's birthday week. Why not, right?! We tried to do something fun every day to celebrate his coming birthday. We had a blast.

This year Gabe looked forward to his birthday for a couple of months before hand. He would say "When is my birthday coming Mum?...it's not coming." He gave us a very detailed and specific list of what he would like and of course we spoiled him rotten. The night before his birthday Brad and I were up wrapping presents and half way through Brad looked at me and said "Do you think you went a little overboard?" I was disgusted by this, um, me? Go overboard? For my son's birthday? NEVER! =)

We kicked it off the Sunday before with Nana Sandy and Papa Clark. After our family dinner, we did presents and had Oreo (Gabe's fave) cupcakes with Oreo frosting. Nana and Papa bought Gabe his first big boy bike which he was excited about and some other neat gifts. Nana Sandy has the pics from this which I will have to post when I get them.

On Monday Brad and I took Gabe and his cousin Andrew to see Kung Fu Panda at the Kaysville theatre. The boys loved the movie and spending some time together. Andrew gave Gabe a cool transformer and a neat nerf gun which he has had lots of fun playing with. I love watching those two cute boys together. It is hilarious to listen to them have their own little conversations. They loved having their own popcorn, sprite and nerds to eat. We will miss not having Andrew close by while they live in Elko, NV.
Andrew giving Gabe his present

I love Gabe's face in this one. He was so excited.

On Tuesday night after dinner, we went and got frozen yogurt at Yogotogo. Gabe loves that he can pick his own toppings!

Look at that hair! Haircuts coming up this week I think!

What fun is eating ice cream if you don't get some on your nose?

On Wednesday for school Gabe took some birthday cupcakes to share with his class mates. Spiderman cupcakes of course. It is a rule of the pre-school that any food brought in to share must be store bought or made in the pre-school kitchen. Since I had to work full time this past week store bought was cool with me. Gabe was so excited to take them to school and I just love this picture of him with his teacher Ms Cassie. He loves Ms Cassie and he loves school. He was thrilled to have the kids sing happy birthday to him.

Since my baby would rather eat beans, peas, carrots or pistachios than cake, this year I opted not to spend hours making and decorating a fancy cake. Instead, on Wednesday night Gabe and I had fun messing up the kitchen making some cupcakes. Gabe loves to bake with me so we had fun spending some time in the kitchen together. He requested white cupcakes and strawberry frosting. I don't even know that he ate one whole cupcake but he did love cracking the eggs, measuring the ingredients and of course frosting and decorating the cupcakes.

On the BIG day Daddy went into work a little later so that when we woke up we could do presents in bed. After presents we had pancakes for breakfast. Then after breakfast I took Gabe and his little cousin Payton to the zoo. Gabe was so excited to see the animals but especially the dinosaurs they had there for "Zoorasic park". This year Nana Trudy and Mike gave Gabe some money for his birthday. He was thrilled to have his own money. Lately Gabe has been interested in money. We have given him some little jobs around the house and he likes to do them, get paid and then put his money in his wallet. He was thrilled to be able to use some of his money from Nana Trudy to buy a toy dinosaur at the zoo. After the zoo we got some McDonald's for lunch and went home for nap time. After nap time Gabe and I went swimming at the Clearfield Aquatic Center. Gabe and I had a blast swimming together as it was a HOT day. Finally later that night we went out to dinner with Uncle Jarom, Aunty Bre and baby Payton to Sizzler (Gabe's choice). Gabe loves to have steak at Sizzler. It was so much fun to go with Uncle Jarom, Aunty Bre and baby Payton and they gave Gabe the coolest Dragon which he has loved playing with.

Opening presents

So excited! The pterdactyl he is holding was big on his wish list this year. When he opened it he said "A pteradactyl, exactly what I wanted!" We both laughed. It was worth the 3 stores I went to, and 6 stores I called trying to find it.

The Zoo!

The TREX! He was so excited to see the T-rex but wasn't too sure at first how close he wanted to get to it. After a while he walked right up to the fence, but then when he roared Gabe came running. I love these sequence shots of him running back towards me.

He wanted a picture on the lions

Gabe is so cute with Payton. While we were walking around the zoo, he was concerned that the sun was in her eyes so tried blocking it with blanket.