Austin's 4th Birthday!

Austin turned 4 on Tuesday!

We had lots of fun celebrating my big boy this week.
First, Austin had preschool on his birthday and got to wear a special birthday crown for the day and bring a special snack for snack time.

He also got 3 Skittles at the end (Skittles are given out at the end of class as reward for being good.  0 Skittles mean poor behavior that day, 1 Skittle is OK, 2 Skittles means he was well behaved...3 Skittles was a special treat).

Nanny came to play with the kids while I had to go round at 2 hospitals for newborn nursery rounds this week.

Sarah getting some snuggle kisses from Nanny.

The kids were a bit cranky because Austin had a cold and also pink eye in both eyes and Sarah had a cold and was fussy and not sleeping well.  We decided to head to the big Chutes and Ladders park since Austin was feeling better and it was predicted to be our last nice weather day (high of 70!).  However, with Sarah being so fussy, we decided to stop in at the clinic on the way for Mommy to peek in Sarah's ears.  My colleague checked her ears quickly between her other patients and found that poor Sarah had a terrible ear infection in her left ear (about 6 weeks after the nasty one in her right ear).  So, off we went to the pharmacy to pick up her antibiotic before heading to the park.

By the time we got to the park, it was starting to get dark already (at 4:30pm).  Daylight savings time can be frustrating.  Austin still had a blast until it got too dark to play any more.

We then had dinner at Nanny and Grandpa's house, topped off with a little cupcake for Austin. We wanted to celebrate his actual birthday day, but we had plans for a BIG cake for his birthday party later, so we just got a little cupcake.  He was pretty excited that it was his birthday.

He got to open some of his birthday presents from Nanny and Grandpa.  He has been very into Super Why recently.  It is an adorable PBS show that teaches letters and reading.  He got some Super Why toys and was very excited!

Sarah was feeling much better by Thursday.

I was on rounds this week, which meant I rounded at the newborn nurseries in the morning, then did night clinic in the evening.  So on Friday, I had night clinic then raced home to have dinner with the kids before getting them to bed and starting on our big project...Austin's birthday cake!  Every year, we make a special birthday cake.  This year, we were trying to think what to make him when Uncle Brian suggested a Candyland cake.  Of course!  He LOVES Canydland!  Well after about a month of planning, and staying up till 2:30am Friday night, we made a great cake!

In progress...

Done!

We recreated the Candyland board on a cake! 
Here is the board we were modeling the cake after.

We copied the board, cut out the path, adjusted it to the right size, put it on an edible image printer (at Sam's Club) and put it on the cake.  Then we added the candy to make each of the lands.  We have the Gingerbread Tree, Peppermint Forest, Gumdrop Mountains, Licorice Forest, Peanut Acres, Lollipop Woods, Snowflake Lake, Chocolate Swamp, and of course, the Candy Castle!  We worked really hard on it and I think it turned out great!  It is huge because we couldn't fit the board on a smaller cake, so we did a full sheet cake.  We finished around 2am and got to bed around 2:30am after cleaning up the huge mess we made along the way.  As we worked on the cake, we watched the first snow of the season fall outside.  It reminded me of the night he was born, as we got settled into our hospital room around 2am, we watched the snow falling out the window.  We ended up getting a lot of snow that night, but it was gone by the time we went home from the hospital.

Anyway, on Saturday we had the family birthday party.  Austin was so happy all day!  It was a wonderful day with family, despite the snow making the drive here much more treacherous.  Everyone arrived safely and we had a great day.  

Austin with his birthday balloon.

Austin wore his birthday crown and Alexis drew one to match.

"Happy Birthday to you..."

Austin was very excited about his cake!

Blowing out the candles.

Sarah had lots of fun hanging out with Uncle Brian.

Marveling at the Candyland board.

In keeping with the Candyland theme, we got Austin the newest version of the Candyland game ("Candyland: The World of Sweets").

Then it was on to watching the Irish game vs. Utah.
 Sarah got dressed up in her cheerleader outfit.

 She really enjoyed standing up by her rocking chair watching the game and cheering on the Irish!

Austin and Alexis got a bit bored while we were watching the game, so I set them up in the playroom with the portable DVD player so they could watch Toy Story 3 (which Austin got as a gift today).  They had a blast hanging out on Austin's big bean bag chair watching the movie.

Appropriately, the evening ended with a rousing game of Candyland on Austin's new board.

What a fun day!  Happy Birthday to Austin!