Camden's 4th Birthday!

It's hard to believe our little guy is already 4 years old. It feels like we just brought him home from the hospital just last week. I used to think of how corny it started to sound when everyone we knew with kids would say "treasure these moments because they go by in the blink of an eye" but wow! That is so true!! He is such a boy and not a baby any more.

A couple big milestones from this year:
Stitches - Cam got 5 over his eye from a fall at the skate park (yes, he had a helmet on)
Diapers - Goodbye to those (But we are saying hello to them again with Chase coming home soon)
Travel - In his first 4 yrs he has swam in the Atlantic and Pacific, been to Hawaii, MD, VA, NC, CA, WA, OR, ID, KS, and UT (More than me in my first 20 yrs)
Swimming - He loves to swim, hates water wings, dives to the bottom of 4 ft and even in the river
Sports - Can hit a ball with a bat when pitched to him - no T-ball for him, can throw a lacrosse ball, knows how to dribble a soccer ball across a field
Reading - knows his alphabet and recognizes every letter, counts to twenty and even to ten in Spanish, can write his name, knows his phonics for each letter
Outdoors - he has done hikes of close to 5 miles round trip w/ 1000 ft of elevation gain, loves to explore the trails and will walk forever
Skiing - this year he has the leg strength to go down the bunny slope entirely on his own
Biking - he took off his training wheels this year for the "Kiddie Cross" races and has never looked back at them

If it seems like I am bragging about my kid - I AM!!!! I am just so damn proud of him and truly believe there is nothing he cannot accomplish.

For his birthday this year we went all out. We invited about 12 of his closest friends and their families to Springhouse Cellars in Hood River (http://www.springhousecellar.com/). Yes - a winery for a four year old's birthday party.

We rented out part of their warehouse and they gave us full access to that and the area behind the tasting room for a little indoor fun in the cold/wet northwest winter. take a guess as to the theme Camden chose for his party:

Springhouse has been opening their warehouse on the second Friday of every month during the colder months of the year for parents to bring in the kids for a potluck dinner, some wine/beers and some indoor biking or skating for the kids. We decided to use this idea for Camden's party and did the same thing. It worked out great as all of the adults got to mingle and have some wine while our kids raced the big course I set up for them through the warehouse and behind the tasting room.

We did an "official" birthday race and lined up all the kids for a 4 lap race
The boys took it pretty serious as you can see:

This was the one tricky maneuver as they had to come through this door and make a quick right turn - a little carnage here but no one got hurt:

Camden was all smiles coming into the finish line! You can guess at the winner but everyone got a gold medal for racing and then took off for more "practice laps" while the parents sipped some wine.

We also did a pinata that had to have been the most well constructed piece of cardboard in the universe. I finally had to rip it open and then let them hit it just to get the candy out!

Of course we also did CAKE!!:

With the massive sugar rush of candy and cake, the kids all worked it off with about 100 laps on the race course:

As things started winding down we opened presents. Camden has some very generous friends and with a party this big I think his birthday ended up bigger than Christmas this year! Our problem now is that we have no place to put all of his stuff!!

The first four years have been a non-stop whirlwind of excitement with this little guy. I shudder to think what the future holds for him and his little brother who will be trying to keep up with him soon!