Jackson's Birthday Festivities

We celebrated Jackson's 4th birthday two weekends ago! I know everyone says it, but, boy, does time ever fly! I can't believe my baby is four years old. I wrote my sweet boy a letter for his birthday which you can read here, if you like. 

We had my brother and sister-in-law from Alberta stay with us for five days and my dad for three, so it was a lot of fun around here. The kids soaked up all the extra love and attention. We packed a lot into those five days. We had Jackson's birthday party on Saturday and celebrated again on his actual birthday on Monday. That meant two cakes, people, and I was not complaining! 

Uncle Jon and Aunt Chantal with Addilyn and Jackson at the top of the "mountain" near our house

The day of his party Jackson woke up and proceeded to run around the house in his underwear, squealing about all of the balloons. I have photos of it to embarrass him at his wedding some day, but I'll spare him blogosphere humiliation. Needless to say, it was pretty cute (and reassuring to me as an emotional momma that turning four does not mean he's ready to start shaving, get a job and move out of the house just yet. 

One of my goals for this month was to throw a birthday party that Jackson would love, not myself or Pinterest (for his 1st birthday I had a lot of fun with a full-out Cat in the Hat theme and about a million DIY projects - very cool, but would lead to a stressed out momma rather than a present one with how full our life is now). He's old enough now to know what he wants (and apparently too young to appreciate how awesome Pinterest stuff is), so I wanted his input on his celebration and I left Pinterest out of it this time. He wanted his family, swimming, to go fishing, and a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and mint chip ice cream. Simple and sweet. So that's what we did!

We had family over on a beautiful, summery Saturday. We swam, chatted, BBQ'd, played, opened presents, ate cake, and Jackson was a happy new 4 year old. On his actual birthday my dad and brother took him fishing and he caught 4 fish! It was a great weekend of celebrating our growing boy and making precious memories. I'm so grateful for our family, near and far, young and old, who came to love on my boy. 

Papa, Jackson, and Great Grammie

Addie munching her 1,000,000th piece of watermelon and snuggling with Aunt Chantal & Uncle Jon

Dad helping him open his gifts!

Blowing out his 4 candles with Great Grandpa cheering him on!

Grandpa giving Jackson his first fishing rod

Time to catch some fish!

I helped him get his fourth fish for the day. (I was way more excited than he was!)

The sun going down on a great day. My baby is four years old!