five

Our youngest son Kanyon turned 5 years old in February. My baby is growing up...he is so smart; he tells me that his preschool teacher says he can skip Kindergarten! He's done so well the past few years, and I love seeing his progress. I'm sad knowing that my youngest son is leaving behind toddlerhood.

He celebrated his special day in 3 different ways. The first one was the preschool party. He got to pick a special snack to take to preschool to share with his classmates. He decided he wanted chocolate creamies and donut holes, and he helped pass them out to his class. They sang Happy Birthday to him and then they all ate. They loved his choices, of course!

We had a family celebration for him in Idaho Falls. He chose to spend the night in a hotel, go swimming, and go ice skating. We went indoor ice skating at the Idaho Falls ice rink, but they didn't have any walkers like the Logan Rink had, so he didn't really enjoy it. His favorite part was a tiny little patch of ice that was right next to the hockey players' bench! He spent a lot of time on that!

The rest of us all got hockey skates, and we tried learning to skate on them. They are different than figure skates, but by the end of the public skate time, we were all doing pretty good!

We went swimming at the public swimming pool during the family fun swim time in the evening. It was the biggest indoor swimming pool the boys have ever been to. They were all so happy! The younger boys went down slides, Ammon practiced swimming, and Josh and Ammon jumped off the diving boards.

As we were taking a break from swimming in their hot tub, somebody puked in the pool and everybody had to get out. Thankfully, we got a really good half hour of swim time in before that happened. So we soaked in the hot tub a little longer and then went back to the hotel.

After we got back home from the birthday trip, we had our third party for Kanyon: opening gifts and eating cake and ice cream. Grandma T. came over to join us for the festivities, too.

One of his favorite gifts was the electronic Thomas the Train toothbrush from Grandma P. He was so happy! He brushed his teeth every 10 minutes that night with it!

He had three gifts that he kept repeatedly asking for: a monster truck that you can drive that isn't a remote control, a real crashing derby car, and a gray sniper rifle. Those were some pretty big requests for a little boy! Josh found a toy sniper rifle for him online, and he was so happy!

He also got a lego star wars DS game, a Kirbyland wii game, clothes, books, and a few more toys. For his birthday dessert, he chose to have a chocolate cake and chocolate creamies (again).

Happy Birthday, Kanyon! We love you so much!

At the age of 5, some of Kanyon's favorites are:

Buddies: Wyatt Nelson, Hudson Bertram, and Aidan Oliverson

TV show: Tom & Jerry, Thomas the Train

Movie: Despicable Me 

Wii games: Just Dance, Lego Indiana "Johns", Lego Star Wars, GoldenEye 

Activities: singing, learning ABC's, counting, playing with uncles and cousins, riding scooter 

Food: plain hot dogs w/BBQ sauce, fruit snacks, vanilla yogurt, bread, vanilla pudding

Toys: trucks, tractors, cars, marbles

Games: Charades, Blokus