Thanksgiving and a Parade

The boys celebrated Thanksgiving at school the Friday of the week prior.

Aunt Kathy hosted dinner on Thanksgiving this year, giving us a break from cooking the big turkey. The only pictures I seemed to have taken are of Charlotte all dolled up.

The following day we put up our decorations, finally. Noah had thought it was Christmas season since that Saturday (the day after Thanksgiving at school). It didn't help matters that there was also a beautiful snowfall that day so it really looked liked Christmas. Here the boys are showing off their new slippers from Nana Jenny.

After the decorations were up we decided to start a new tradition by attending the local Light Up the Holidays parade, fireworks, and tree lighting. It was pretty frosty out, but we made it through most of the parade before heading back to our car with frozen toes and fingers.

Five Years

On November 10th, Noah turned five years old. I'm going to post this every year on his birthday, but I can't believe he is this old already. Something clicked right around his birthday. He's saying more intelligent things (although he still has a slight speech problem), he can write his name perfectly and is getting quite good at the rest of his letters, he started drawing really really well and is consumed with "writing" in his little notebooks, his memory has gotten better, he started eating (his teacher told me he's one of the best eaters in the class right now!) and he is also becoming a little sassier, which is to be expected.

At his five year check-up he piled on a whopping five pounds in the last year weighing in at 36 pounds. That is phenomenal considering he only gained two pounds from ages two to four. I think this puts him around the 10th percentile, which is the highest he's been since he was 18 months old when he briefly reached this mark. His height is still pretty average at 42.5 inches. My first thought when he was measured was, cool he can ride the Demon now (guess I'm still thinking in terms of Six Flags heights). We'll have to take the kids there sometime.

Keeping with tradition, we captured Noah's last night as a four year old.

He had celebrations at both of his schools.

We celebrated on his birthday with a free slice of Portillo's chocolate cake and lunch at the Choo Choo restaurant (ignore the long faces - they were just waiting for their food)

The weekend following his birthday we had a huge kid's party at Pump It Up (his pick) with friends and classmates from both schools. This was his first "kid" birthday party and he was so excited.

Later that day we had family over for yet another party

And he got some pretty great presents like...

A Woodland Duplo set

Some crafty clay

A huge dinosaur and lots of Ninja Turtles (or as Noah calls them, Action Turtles)

 

And this interesting Spooner from Great Aunt Michele

I think five is going to be a fantastic year. He's going to be learning to read and write and getting prepared to start Kindergarten. I've heard ages five to nine are the "magical" years where they are now cognitively able to interact with you on a high level and participate in most activities, but before they become little pre-teen brooders. I'm excited to help him grow and learn. Happy 5th Birthday, Noah!