Hagen turns 4!

We celebrated Hagen's 4th birthday at Metroplex Gymnastics in Allen. I think the kids all had a really good time, and Hagen's hair was plastered in sweat by the end of the party. Many months ago, he requested a Buzz Lightyear cake for his birthday. I would ask him every now and then if that's what he still wanted, up to about a month before. He never wavered so we got a Buzz cake from Hands on Design in Allen. It was really good and she did a pretty good job - it wasn't nearly as good as a Grandmommie cake, but it was still nice.

There wasn't enough time in the party room at the gym to open presents, so we opened them at home with Grandmommie and Granddad after the party. Hagen seemed to like all his presents and it's fun that he can pretty much open things by himself now. I also love seeing his reactions and exclamations when he opens something REALLY cool.

These were the presents from Grandmommie and Granddad, wrapped by Grandmommie, of course...not me.....

Hagen had his Celebration of Life ceremony at school the day before his birthday. It was really neat and Hagen was being a HAM the entire time....I brought a few pictures from when he was a baby until now. One of the pictures was of him and Sam on their first playdate when they were about 11 months old. SOOOOOOOOO cute to see how they've grown, and I figured Sam would get a kick out of seeing that old picture of himself, too.

We went to the new Giants of the Savannah exhibit at the Dallas Zoo that weekend, also. It was only open for members that weekend and opened to the public the following weekend. I'm glad we went; I'm so happy that the elephants have so much more space, and it's really cool to see the giraffes up close and be able to feed them (we haven't done that yet, though). Hagen seemed to enjoy it and I'm really impressed with the animals' new digs.

Hagen was playing around on this rock when we were leaving the exhibit and I told him to growl like a tiger.

We bought him a new snake in the gift shop for good bedtime behavior over the last couple of weeks. The new snake's name is Spotty Spot. I love how Hagen comes up with these names for his animals so quickly.


I took this picture one night after Hagen went to bed because he didn't believe it when I told him I check on him every night after he falls asleep. Since he doesn't see me, clearly I'm not really there, according to him. So I told him I would take a picture that night to prove it. I showed him the picture the next morning, saying, "See? I checked on you last night, but you didn't know it because you were asleep". He said, "no, you didn't". I can't win.