Roar Grant Weston is 4!

Last weekend we celebrated Grant's 4th Birthday.  He is still in full dinosaur mode, so we planned an extreme dinosaur weekend for him. 

On Saturday we surprised Grant with a trip to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago.  We left Ashton at home with the grandparents so that each boy got some one on one time- something they never ever get.  Grant was so excited and asked just about every 15 minutes if we were there yet.  We had never been to that zoo before.  We were quite surprised at what an awesome zoo it was!


Ironic that my 4 year old asks to ride in the stroller but my 2 year old refuses!  Grant also still has a love for maps.

We saw a dolphin show, huge lions, giraffes, hippos, bears, rhinos and most importantly a dinosaur exhibit.

 So excited to see all the dinosaurs! 

Grant's absolute favorite is the long neck.  I was so excited to see one and get my pic with Grant in front of it.  Too bad Grant had to pull his refusal to take a good pic with mommy attitude AGAIN.  I an starting to take this personally.

The look of amazement on his face when he saw the dinos move and roar made the 6 hour car ride totally worth it! 

Even though his official birthday was on Tuesday, we had his party on Sunday so that all the family could be there. 

My 4 year old Grantasaurus was full of energy that day.  Next year I will need to remember that making him wait all day for his party is not a good idea.

He wanted his party gear on all afternoon and refused to sit still.  He ran through the house yelling and screaming like a wild child!

 You can almost see the wild in his eyes in this pic!

Finally about 20 minutes before the party started, he was sent to time out in his room and fell asleep.  Suddenly happy excited Grant turned into grumpy sleepy Grant but luckily that was short lived once he saw all his cousins here.

My attempt at a cake.  Grant was very specific that his green long neck dinosaur HAD to be on the cake.  No exceptions to that rule.  It turned out better than I thought it would considering I forgot to put in my cardboard piece to hold the top cake on the bottom!

The food.....  I don't usually go to the extreme of labeling food, but I saw some fun ideas on Pinterest this year so I got into it.  Plus, Grant thought it was so fun to eat dino eggs, etc... so it made the extra effort worth it.

Dino Eggs- meatball subs.  Broncho bites- corn. Swamp Dip- chips and dip. Carnivores- dino chicken nuggets for the kids. Herbivores- fruit salad, Dino dig- dirt cups with dino gummies.

So many awesome gifts.

The tractor he has been begging us for forever.

 

My Grantster has a true talent for opening presents.  I mean, who really gets this excited for a new backpack! ?

 Finally, he can be a golfer just like his daddy...

Blessed by all his gifts.

 Time for cake and ice cream!

Things I forgot to take pictures of but want to remember for my books.... Party favors were dino grabbers and dino hats like the one Grant is wearing.  School favors were treat bags with a little dinosaur and dino sticker book.

At the end of the day, we all sat on the couch for some tv time.  Not 5 minutes later I looked over and saw this.  Such a precious ending to a special day.