Merry Johnnymas and a Happy Ninth Year!

I don't usually have favorite children, but when Johnny requested a Christmas themed birthday, he definitely held that position for the solid month preparing. It was such a fun day, and so fitting to Johnny. I also feel like I should add Johnny is obsessed with Santa Claus. He is the object of all Johnny's art projects and essentially Johnny's hero.

Ice cream cake!

The only thing that competed with Johnny's obsession with Christmas, was his obsession with Star wars! So his gifts mainly focused on legos and star wars this year.

On his actual birthday, the Cummings got him Crumbl cookies! It was fun to have another mini party after a day full of cub scouts, Young Women's, and basketball practices!

His friend, Nathan got him a ninjago lego guy Johnny didn't have. Johnny was so, so happy.

From Instagram:

We celebrated Johnny V turning NINE yesterday! Oh, how I love him. He is grateful, earnest, witty, inventive, aware, and always makes sure we schedule family time. He wanted a Christmas themed birthday with his siblings, which basically made my LIFE, so yes we pulled out the garland, lights, stockings, music, Rudolphopoly, and so forth to have a Merry Johnnymas and Happy Ninth Year! He got a Light Saber, Legos, and a bike; and that basically sums up Johnny right now. He's perfectly content as a homebody, but is happiest hiking trails and adventuring the outdoors. He makes a point to check in on me every day, and earnestly tries to do the right thing. Oh Johnny, Happy Birthday! You make my life merry and bright!

Johnny-Boy Turns EIGHT

 Johnny's eighth birthday was one for the books!
We had only been in Medford for a couple weeks and it was fun to have a reason to celebrate. I had balloons in his bed when he woke up and decorations leading from his room to the table. My favorite included our zoo animals saying different puns, or cheesy one-liners like "I'd be LION if I said I wasn't excited for the party!" or from the tiger "I can't wait to eat some birthday boy I mean- birthday cake" (Johnny got a kick out of that one.)  On everyone's place I made Johnny's favorite cookie in the shape of their first initial, it was a hit, and turned out so cute.
A couple days before, Johnny wrote a detailed menu for his birthday, so I knew it was important I deliver! For breakfast he had homemade waffles, strawberries and whipped cream with bacon (or sausage or both) with orange julius as the drink. For lunch he wanted either Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, homemade rolls and "like veggies, because you will probably make us have that anyway" or McDonalds (we opted for McDonalds, because who has meatloaf mid-day?) Then for dinner he wanted root beer and "Little Caesars Pizza- not Costco though, because it is gross."  So we had a busy day of eating ahead of us! Ha!

In the morning John and the kids had a rubber-band gun war that lasted probably two solid hours. At this point, it was still a novelty to have John home during the day, and I was so grateful for how much fun the kids had with him. 

Next, we headed to every park we could find in Medford! (We made it to only two- we were having so much fun!)

It was a beautiful day for January! We had such a good time. 

Next Johnny and I went to pick up the pizza and Jurassic World 2, since our kids are all about dinosaurs these days. 

After dinner, we blew out candles on Johnny's butterfinger-brownie-ice-cream cake. I can't be positive, but I'm pretty sure he wished for a dog! Haha. (He thought FOR SURE he was getting one for his birthday...no. haha.)

Next, he opened presents. He got a shark lego set, black panther lego battle ship thing, a new wall ball, bubble gum, a "spitter" dinosaur, and pokemon cards!

He was one happy boy!

Here he is opening magic card tricks from my mom. :) He also received a nerf gun from her. (The Brassells brought their gift, when they came for Johnny's baptism!)

After presents, we watched Jurassic World and cuddled and I just marvelled at how big my little Johnny boy is becoming.

Johnny-
Happiest of Birthdays. You bring such a sweetness to our family. I love your sense of humor and I love how your sit on the stool and slowly tell me highlights from your day.  A couple of my favorite stories about you involve you making others feel good. At school the other day, everyone was making fun of someone for having a jacket that was too small, so you pointed to your oversize jersey and said, "Well, at least he's not wearing a dress like me!" and it made everyone laugh and leave that boy alone. Another time, a teammate was feeling discouraged by how he was doing at practice. He had a breakdown and none of the coaches or parents could calm him down. Then, you went and sat next to him and talked about how you messed up all the time too, and you made your friend laugh. Soon he was back to normal practicing with everyone. So many times I see you reach out and help out and you don't make a big deal about it. You just do what's right, because it is the right thing to do. You are just a very kind, nice boy, and I learn so much from watching you. You are an incredible big brother and a great example to your little brothers. I am grateful they have you to look out for them and show them the good they can do in the world.
I love you Johnny! I love that you are the first one up every morning and super happy about it, and I love that you can't fall asleep without a hug goodnight.
It was so fun celebrating my favorite oldest son.
Happy Birthday Johnny 5!
love, Mom

Johnny turns FIVE!

Five. Johnny-five as he is often called, is actually five years old. I can't believe it. It feels like just yesterday, he was a two week old kickin' it with me in at five in the morning while I studied. Even as a baby he had that eager twinkle in his eye and his personality has been a delight to watch as it has blossomed into this sweet, fun, energetic, imaginative young boy! 

Oh, am I glad I get to be in his life! We had a great time celebrating that boy. He decided to celebrate his birthday the day after so that I could be home all day (on his birthday I had school), I must admit- I was flattered, haha. Johnny is such a mama's boy and I really do love it. 

Well, as you are well aware: this little boy of mine is obsessed with bats, soooo what other theme could possibly be suitable?? 

Here is my attempt at trying to be creative with his cake...those pretzels and oreos are supposed to be bats, and you can't tell but the sprinkles are also bats!

This one is less blurry...

I had fun decorating his table!

I also loved how these bat balloons turned out!

The day before I went to the dye-cutter on campus and cut out 130 bats. Johnny woke up on his big day and was so freaked out by all of them he would just close his eyes every time he went into the kitchen, haha.

For breakfast we had waffles AND pancakes, per Johnny's request, I had the pancake be the body adn the waffles be the wings, it turned out cute.

For snacks, I made bat pudding cups and cut out bat shapes from chocolate poptarts, then I through some veggies on there so I wouldn't feel so guilty. (The veggies ended up on the floor) (We need a dog or something.)

For games, we played pin the fangs on the bat and "Don't Eat Pete!" (a bat version I tried to make look all cute, but really just didn't look cute at all, haha)

More pictures of the kitchen...

He was SO excited for his transformer!

So was William...

This is probably a good place to mention that for Johnny's birthdays, we are required to wear our pajamas for the party. Ever since his third birthday. Like literally- as soon as Dad walked through the door, "Dad! Go get your pajamas on! It's my birthday!" Knowing this was a rule, I got Johnny Batman footie pajamas, he loves them....as does William...

I should also mention John got his first paycheck this day! Yay! 

Matthew enjoyed the excitement of everything

I think John likes Johnny birthdays the most because the toys are so much fun.

Rebecca adn Tyler came over for the party!

They get married in April...don't they look good with kids? (#morecousinsplease)

They (and Melissa) got him nerf guns, Johnny and Melissa played non-stop through out the night, he loved them!

Singing "Happy Birthday."

The next day, Johnny had a good time introducing his new toys to his old ones. 

Well, that is basically it.

Birthdays are an awesome tradition, it is so nice to pause and focus in that one important person for a day, and Johnny is such a special person in my life. 

He's my jokester, my cuddler, my rockstar big brother, my good-morning-hug giver, my daring adventurer, my eager learner, my puzzle boy, my clean-under-the-bed boy and just my all around I'm lucky to have him boy....Happy Birthday Johnny-Five!

Johnny turns FOUR!

I can't believe Johnny is FOUR YEARS OLD! Where, oh where, did the time go?  I was really excited for Johnny's birthday. With the rest of our birthdays within a couple weeks of each other, and it about kills him that his isn't within a couple days, so we hear about his birthday non-stop for the next five months.  Not to mention, Johnny is Mr. Middle Child around here and often times falls in the cracks between William and Caity, I was really excited to have a day solely for him.

His birthday theme changed almost hourly from Ninja Turtles, to trains, to dinosaurs, but stayed pretty consistent with MONSTERS!  I was pretty excited. 

The night before, John and I stayed up late, creating monster decorations and Johnny's frequently requested monster cake, like really- he asked about his Monster Cake all day every day and the night before said, "I'll see you when I'm four and there will be a Monster CAKE!"  

I was quite impressed with John's streamer skills- he blew through three rolls of streamers!

As always, the picture doesn't do his streamer job justice. I just like that John Calhoun.

On an hourly basis, Johnny would wake up, thinking it was his birthday.  He would proceed to wake up his little brother, and let me say- it was a long night.

At six, Caity woke up and realized it was Johnny's birthday and ran to wake up her brothers.

On the kids' birthdays I feel like and HGTV designer giving their final review (who am I kidding here?) it is so exciting and their reactions are always my very favorite part of the day.  The kids ran into the front room/dining room and I heard squeals, and my heart was happy.  "Johnny, look at this!"  "Wow, Caity, look! My MONSTER CAKE!"

I made each of the kids a little goody bag. In each one, was a bubbles and a juice box- both decorated to look like Monsters with paper and googly eyes, a monster bean bag I sewed them, and Monsters Inc. gummies.

They came running back to me with their monster party hats showing me all their cool things and I learned the little monster bean bags were a hit, which a huge relief to this craft-handicapped mama.

Next, we played with balloons for about 45 minutes, like really- 45 whole minutes.  Anyone with young children has to understand what a feat it is to have children focused on any one thing that long.  Johnny said, "This balloon is the best birthday present everrrr!"  Wow, that knowledge could have made gift shopping so much easier!

 John came home and we had Johnny's birthday breakfast: funfetti pancakes, hot dogs and eggs, yogurt, strawberries and chocolate milk.  We even put a candle on Johnny's pancakes and sang, "For he's a jolly good fellow" which Johnny thought was plain silly.

 After John took off to work (insert sad face), we played bean bag related games: hopscotch, bean-bag toss, hide-and-find the monsters.  Then, as the kids watched Monsters Inc, I finished a monster matching game I have been working on.  I am really pleased with how it turned out, and when I brought it out to play with kids, we had a lot of fun.

The big tradition at our house is Happy Meals on birthdays.  So, off to "Old McDonalds" to give our stomach something to digest over the next decade.  The kids had a lot of fun and really enjoyed playing in the play land.

After we dropped Miss Caity off to school, I took Johnny and William to PoJo's arcade.  Because it was Johnny's birthday, he got to spin the birthday wheel and won a ride on the merry go round and 200 tickets.  He rode bunny and William rode the giraffe-horse, and momma almost lost her lunch because that merry-go-round was fast!  We played some arcade games, rode a mechanical rocket and picked out prizes for everyone in the family.  As we left, Johnny said, "I wish every day was my birthday."

(William was FREAKED whenever something would start moving.)

On the Merry-Go Round. Johnny exclaimed, "I can't believe how tall I am now!" He chose the rabbit because rabbits are "fast like me."

When we got home, John was there (yay!) and we played the matching game again and had some down time just enjoying playing together.  The boys got in the bath and Johnny washed his hair because now that he is four, he is tall enough to do it, apparently.

We left to pick Caity up from school and got there early enough that we got to play on the big toy. I always get a little nervous when Johnny asks me to go down the slide with him, luckily, this were the wide variety and I didn't get stuck. :) Phew.

At home, we decorated Monster Cookies with left over Christmas candy.  It was a lot of fun and I am glad I didn't bum out on making the sugar cookies.  We ate the sugar cookies with lunchables, which- may I add- Johnny now makes a sandwich with the three ingredients, instead of eating all the cheese in one bite, and throwing the crackers under the couch- he grew up so fast. :)

Here they are with their monster cookies.

 The kids played with dinosaurs and legos while I did stuff done around the house that needed my attention.

John walked through the door right as I put William down for bed.  He was so excited to go to sleep, it was a long day for that little guy!

John, Caity and Johnny started to build a fire in the fireplace.  This was Johnny's big request and he was anxiously waiting all day to roast hot dogs on the fire.  It was a great dinner, coming from a lady who has the taste buds of a five year old.  There was cheese puffs, watermelon, strawberries, and blackened, charred hot dogs. Did I mention that for Johnny's party he requested we all wear our pajamas?  This kid loves his "comfy clothes."

Next, we blew out candles on Johnny's monster cake.  I accidentally bought trick candles and so they kept relighting and the kids thought that was hilarious.  It was really funny and ended with Johnny spitting all over the cake.  As soon as we had that taken care of, Johnny announced, "I wished I could find PETCH!" 

Next we moved to the living room to open presents. My mom made Johnny a bug jar quilt, it was really cool and Johnny was so excited. I love this age, so easy to please. He would have been content to stop there.  From Aunt NeeNee, he got dinosaur slippers that were also very well recieved. johnny is obsessed with monsters and dinosaurs-so these were right up his alley.  John's parents got him the four ninja turtles- this was the jack pot of the birthday.  We wrapped them in a huge box and through in all sorts of garbage so he had to dig for them.  He was shocked he had every single one.  He already has the red one, but since he has never actually seen the show he was like, "Mom! Now, I have all five of them!"  Haha, weird how obsessed he is with them when he hasn't ever watched the show.  John and I got him a Ninja Turtle Look and Find book and a Transformer that was a police car/robot.  Johnny acts like the transformer is the king of the cars when he plays. It is pretty cute.  I also let him choose out a hot wheels earlier in the day, so that was another gift- technically.  Caity got him a "long neck" so they could play "Little Foot."  It was quite the bounty and he was a happy camper.  That night he slept with all his toys and played with them on his new quilt and you could just see how lucky he viewed himself.  He was just so content.

(here he is opening Aunt Neenee's present. My battery died half way through videoing, but it is still fun for me to hear his little voice!)

After presents we had cake and Neapolitan ice cream.  He chose out that ice cream because it had everyone's favorites.  He said, "Dad, c careful dad, so you don't eat the strawberry- cause it's pink and you don't like that!"  It made me laugh.  Also, have I mentioned his obsession with "Banilla?" He got me a vanilla scented candle for Christmas and he walks around our house sniffing it all day saying, "Mmmm-Baaaaniiillla!" It is his new flavor of choice.

When I tucked Johnny into bed, I sang "Happy Birthday" to him one more time and he gave me a big hug and we talked about how cool his presents were.  I told him, "Johnny I am so happy you are my little boy."  and he said, "I'M so happy YOUR my mom!" then as I was leaving he said, "And mom, I'm not a little boy, I'm four. But you can still be happy."  

That Johnny.  He makes me smile from the inside out. I love the way his hand fits in mine. I hope he never stops telling me his little stories and his big plans.  I know every mom views their little boy as "something special" and every little boy is. I am so grateful I get a first hand experience to watch this special boy in particular. He is my joy boy.

When he was a baby I used to sing the song, "Hourglass" but Mindy Glendale it went like this:

Little Boy, When you sleep,

I can't help but kiss your cheeks,

I love the way you take my hand,

tell me all about your plans,

rocket ships, way up high

you and I can take a ride, 

and fly away to Neverland,

give our best to Peter Pan,

When you reach for the stars,

Don't forget who you are,

And please, don't grow up way too fast,

I see the sand in my hand, from the first to last,

Oh, life's an hour glass, life's an hourglass.

And it is...time is slipping away so fast it hurts some times. But I am always surprised at how pleased I am with what I discover around the corner, Every season is just so magical in its own right and I am grateful to be in the season of life I am in.