FIVE years old

I can't believe I've got a five year old! Everyone says it...but really...where did the time go? Since we're all usually a little burned out after the holidays, we do most of Brady's birthday celebrating on his half-birthday. So, we save all of his presents and his big birthday party for the summer. He's perfectly happy with this plan because then he gets to have a pool party!

We still tried to make today special though. We continued our "birthday pancake" tradition (pancakes with food coloring and sprinkles) this morning; James stayed home for breakfast as an extra treat. Brady got to help James make his special IHOP pancake recipe.

Brady was supposed to have special friend week at school this week. We postponed it because he was sick on Monday, but we still got to bring in snacks all week and I got to do story time today. He picked out ice cream snowmen as his special birthday snack for school. They were a big hit, but my hands were freezing after making 18 snowmen!! I read Happy Birthday Danny and the Dinosaur for storytime; we took in props (a rescue hero as Danny and a couple dinosaurs and balloons) and Brady got to help "act out" the story.

This afternoon, we went to Bella's house for cupcakes and then came home for Brady's birthday dinner. His special request was English muffin pizzas for dinner.

We didn't have a birthday cake, but I we still managed to turn regular fondue into "birthday fundue". (We'd been planning fondue for New Years Eve but decided we didn't want to share a pot of chocolate with him and his cooties that night. He thought it would be fun to have it tonight.)

We finished off the day with a family game of CandyLand and family story time with Brady's baby book. He loved looking at all of the pictures and hearing the stories of his first year!

And - how's this for perfect timing - he lost his first tooth today! It's been loose for a few weeks and we noticed that the new tooth was coming in. I've been teasing him since it was first loose that I was going to pull it out with pliers. He showed me how loose it was today and I asked if I could try to pull it out. He wasn't thrilled at first, but the tooth practically fell out as soon as I touched it. He's told everyone that he lost it and that the tooth fairy might not come tonight because she's pretty busy!