Lucas Turns 4!

We had a great time celebrating Lucas and his birthday this year. The morning of he got to open one present.  It was a "pet dinosaur" (that's actually a piggy bank) he had picked out at the toy store with Jake a week or so before.  He had a really hard time waiting 'til his birthday to have it but did a good job being patient, so I thought it would be a special way to start out his big day. The first thing he said when he and his dinosaur were reunited were, "Oh, I missed ya!"  while giving it a big hug.  It was very cute!

The reunion:

 

Jake found this light stick at Home Depot.  It changes colors, swirls, flashes, etc.  A great gift for a 4-year old boy!

This picture melts my heart.  I know I am biased, but he is adorable.

He also got a dinosaur egg and even though I hadn't intended the two to be connected, he decided right away that his dinosaur bank was the egg's momma.  She watched over the egg faithfully the whole 2 or 3 days it took for it to hatch.  And the two have been together ever since (she doesn't seem to mind that it was a stegasauraus that hatched out...)

We bit the bullet and headed to Chuck E. Cheese's to celebrate.  Oy.  The Chuck E. Cheese's here is the worst one I've been to and Jake was right on the money (pun intended) when he said that this place is like "Vegas for kids."  But we've taken each of our kids for their birthdays at least once, and it was Lucas' turn.  The kids really did love it, so that's something, right?

Happy Birthday Lucas!  We love you so and want you to always feel you are a very important part of our family.  I am sorry you and I have been struggling a lot; I very much hope that your turning 4 (and not being 3 anymore...) will help with that.  You are such a bright ball of energy and your poor momma here just can't seem to keep up all the time.  But I will keep trying because you are mine and I always want to be there for you, no matter what stage of life you are at. Let's keep working at it together, okay?

Daniel's Hamster

We made Daniel's dream come true and got him a pet hamster for Christmas!  It was really fun because we wrapped up the cage for him to open Christmas morning and then Jake helped him get it all set up with the wood shavings, food, water etc. that evening. The next day Jake took him to the pet store to pick one out and Daniel is now the very proud owner of Tiny, an albino hamster with snow white fur and red eyes. 

Tiny is super cute and lots of fun to watch. We've had her for 2 weeks now and she is just getting to the point where she can be held and petted without biting. 

 I resisted getting a pet for a long time but am very pleased to find that a hamster is a great way to go. They're contained within a smallish cage, they keep themselves very clean and they don't need tons of attention just to name a few of the benefits. Low-maintenance, high-payoff. It's great!

Jake had several hamsters growing up and has been so great in helping us learn the ropes in caring for and interacting with Tiny. I am very grateful for his experience and expertise.  Without it I would have had a much harder time taking the plunge.

Daniel loves having a hamster; I can tell he is so pleased to be her owner and is quite attached to her already.  There was a point where we had to consider the possibility of taking her back to the pet store and trading her in for another hamster that didn't bite so much. But Daniel really wanted to keep Tiny and told us, "it's not right to exclude a member of the family." I'm so glad for his decision, especially since she's not biting nearly so much anymore and it made me realize that I'm rather attached to this particular hamster as well :)

I am charmed by this one of Daniel and Tiny just looking at each other:

Her cage is pretty cool.  Between it and having Daniel as her owner, Tiny is livin' the good life:

 Psst!  She's in the bottom-right corner: