Collin

A post all about Collin! It's been so long since I've written about my boys individually, and birthday season seems like a good time to do it! 

Collin just turned 4, and is such a smart, funny, and sweet boy. His favorite color is green, or sometimes "green and blue."

His favorite animal is a zebra.

His favorite breakfast is oatmeal. On his first day of preschool, we told him he could choose any breakfast he wanted, and he chose oatmeal with bananas and cinnamon!

He says his "L"s like "Y"s and I love it.

He still loves puzzles and has advanced to doing 100 piece puzzles by himself. He can just sit at the table and do them for a long time. 

Another current favorite activity is coloring. A month or two ago, he became interested in coloring books and trying to stay in the lines. He would carefully color centimeter at a time in order to stay in the lines. Now he can do it much more quickly, but will still stay occupied coloring for a long time. He recently discovered color by number pictures, and loves them! He asks for more all the time.

He is the best big brother and loves playing with his bros. He calls them "Truban and Ellbiott," or for short, "Troob" and "Ellb.

He builds with blocks every day. He makes people out of them and has a specific way he does it- shoes, legs, hips, torso, arms, neck, head, hat. Sometimes he switches it up and builds people out of mega blocks instead.

It's so fun that he can hold conversations with us now. We also have to be careful because he picks up phrases that we'd rather he didn't! 

He gets a lot of comments on his long eyelashes- and they really are the longest eyelashes I've ever seen! (I don't think any of his pictures do them justice). We may be biased on this one, but he is just one handsome boy.

Collin loves doing Build and Grow projects with his daddy! He does a lot of the hammering himself. He now has 10 patches on his apron!

Checking out the caves at our beach family reunion.

He loves doing crafts, and was especially proud of these paper bowl animals we made.

Collin is always finding ways to spell his name with food or objects. This time it was banana chips.

I love this picture from an ice cream date with my boy.

He loves helping me in the kitchen, especially making treats. 

If you ask him who his favorite friend is, it is still Adam. We're so glad these two still get to see each other sometimes.

He got to hang out with his look-alike cousin Vance at a family reunion this summer. 

Collin and Truman. This boy loves his little brothers.

He learned to ride his training wheel bike this summer, and it has become a bit of a Sunday morning tradition to take a family walk/ bike ride to the park.

He also spells words out of blocks! We love his creativity.

Spelling out MOM with crayons. He is very interested right now in spelling words and sounding them out. 

A night out with Daddy to see the Lego Movie at the park.

Giant slip and slide at a primary activity!

Silly dress up boy

My favorite face he makes is his "scared face." The picture doesn't quite capture the way he makes his hands into fists and makes his head shake with his eyes wide. But it is funny. This picture was at the Point Defiance Aquarium.

He took this baby book and drew a picture of it! It was the first time he's copied a picture like that and I was surprised.

We went blueberry picking one day and Collin picked a lot, but ate every single one. We had read "Blueberries For Sal" and he thought it was funny to be like Sal and eat them all.

Splash park!

We joined a co-op preschool group where the moms take turn teaching, and Collin loves it! We had it at our house for the first time this week and he said "Mommy, I like you being my teacher." I'm so glad we have the opportunity to do this.

Special backyard campout with Daddy!

We went to the fair and Collin chose to ride the rollercoaster! He liked it, but looked a little nervous during the drops!

Asleep holding the birthday balloon he got in Primary!

Collin told me he wanted popcorn one day but I was busy with the twins. Then when I went in the kitchen, he had gotten out the popcorn maker and popcorn, and was putting in the kernels. So independent.

 Collin had a fun birthday, and we celebrated with friends a few days later! His birthday fell on a Tuesday. He woke up to a room full of balloons! He woke up before us and came into our room holding a white one to give to me, my "favorite color." We told him that he is 4 now, and he said "No, I'm still three! I didn't blow out my candles yet." So we made sure he had some candles to blow out in his breakfast! He chose chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream.

 We went to story time at the library that morning, then came home and waited for Rob to get home for his lunch break. Then, Collin and I went on a special birthday lunch date to Red Robin. Also in the picture below is the musical birthday card my parents sent him. He really loved it and still plays with it.

 His birthday party was at Frontier Park, and we got lucky with great weather that day. He wanted a bumblebee cake. I don't know when he decided he loves bees, but for the last several months, anytime a bumblebee is mentioned, Collin says "I yuv yuv YUV bumblebees!" So, we turned it into a bug party!

Bee cake, ladybug strawberries, worms in dirt, caterpillar grapes, ladybug crackers. Collin had fun helping with the food and made some of the grape skewers himself.

Collin loves his friends and was glad so many of his favorites were able to come! Here he is with a friend from preschool who he calls "Richard the Funnyhead" and cute Emma, his good neighbor friend from Portland who just moved close to us!

Cutting the cake with Charlotte, Adam, and Collin

He and Emma picked up right where they left off. . . they love playing with each other!

We just love our 4 year old!