Hannah's Fourth Birthday!

Jack,

On your Daddy's side of the family, the child that you are closest in age to is Hannah. She had her fourth birthday party yesterday and you had the time of your life. I think you almost received as much attention as the birthday girl herself! As a matter of fact, here is a picture of the birthday girl herself and your cousin Brent catering to you, giving you a ride in one of Hannah's push cars:
You received a ton of attention from your cousins. They were so attentive to you!

In addition to that, there was a great number of snacks available that you could reach and you were very happy about that. Here you are devouring a bowl of pretzels for the whole family, but you thought they were yours.

Your cousin Brent in particular was VERY attentive to you. He was trying to make friends and keep you entertained.

My heart went out to the kid. For all the effort that he expended in the process, you hardly gave him any recognition at all. At times you even seemed to look right past him. (Here you see him almost breaking his neck as he tries to get you to laugh as he rolls over this huge ball. I don't think you even noticed...)

Your cousins were so great to you. Here they were running to the swings which you found hilarious and raced to keep up with them.

Check out that smile! I think you would have been content to adopt all of them and live in a world of just children!

And - for the record - YES, that is my darling nephew, Brent - your hero of the day - flipping me the finger....

Here you are playing with your cousin, Sarah. Sarah and Justin are about the same age and you really looked up to them and Brent.

But the absolute highlight of the day - the icing on the cake - the event-which-will-forever-spoil-you-on-any-lesser-toy, was the presence of an actual Go-Kart at the party...

For the record and so the Division of Family Services isn't called - I went with you on every ride you took on the cart. All 250 of them... Here's a picture for proof:

You had SO much fun on that Go-Kart that it was hard to get you off of it. You put up quite a fight!

I tried to distract you with a more age-appropriate bike, but you would watch eagerly and wave with great enthusiasm to the Go-Kart-er's as they flew by...

After the Go-Kart would leave without you on it, though, your heart would shatter into a billion pieces and you would cry because you couldn't be a part of the fun...

And then wait for it to come by again so you could repeat the above scenario....

We sang "Happy Birthday"

and opened presents (you were FAR less interested in this process than Daddy thought you would be):

and had fun cooking in the play kitchen,

Bouncing balls,

Playing cars,

And climbing and then sliding down their carpeted basement stairs.

I probably don't need to mention that you slept very well last night.

It was another hard morning dropping you off at daycare. I feel horrible, but I know tonight is your first Parent/Teacher conference and I'm quite excited about that!

See you soon, little man!

Love,

Mommy