Five

A certain someone has been counting down the days until his birthday since beginning of January. 

He has also been planning his "airplane/jetplane" themed birthday party

And has been making a list of all of the 'totally awesome' toys he wants for this said birthday.

And been practicing the new way to show everyone how old he is.

Who is this cute little boy you may ask.....

Robby, of course :)  {not to be confused with Robert per the Birthday boy}

Some fun things we did to celebrate his birthday include:

*lunch at McDonald's

*birthday dinner of Spaghetti and homemade meatballs

*Yummy giant "Cupcake" cake with Spumoni ice cream

*BJ's to pick out a few extra DS games with money from GGma and Nona & Papa

*family party/lots of happy birthdays from family

Robby always dreams big when it comes to presents and this year he did not disappoint.  He announced weeks before his birthday that all he wanted for his birthday was a remote control airplane and batteries for his remote control monster truck.  I started researching remote control airplanes and coudn't find one that flew that cost less than $100---that didn't look like it would fall apart the moment we tried it out.  Luckily my friend at work contacted me and said that her daughter had two DS game systems that she never played with and offered to give me one of them for FREE.  We picked it up a few days later and it was perfect condition.  The result= Robby loved it and has really enjoyed his new "Mario Kart" game as well as his Amusement Park & Diego DS games.

We kept his actual birthday sort of low key this year with the plan that we would have a big party for him the next day, Saturday.  He didn't seem to mind in the least bit and we did have a lovely time together opening presents and enjoying time with one another.  In fact, we had so much fun that the kids stayed up WAY too late.  I glanced at the clock at some point and realized with dismay that it was 9pm and all three were still up playing.  Oh my goodness, it's embarassing to admit that this happens way too often at my house.

Five Fun Things about Robby include:

1. His favorite color is hands down RED.  He must have red plates, cups, spoons, and bowls in the kitchen.  This cracks me up because for years my favorite color was also red.  We just bought him one of my favorite books as a child called "Red is Best" that my mother also bought me because I loved that color so zealously :)

2. He is seriously so smart, he amazes me at times what he naturally learns (not from my wonderful parenting).  He has learned simple addition and subtraction from the older (not bigger) sister.  The other day I heard them practicing together while driving.  He knows 2+2, 3+2, 4+3, 2+0, etc.  He also can do very simple subtraction with using his fingers.  He has also really improved on his phonics and loves to tell me what words rhyme, what letter different words start with, can simple spell words based on the phonetical way they sound.  In fact, one of our favorite games we play is "Tell me what words start with the letter "T" or "R" or "S"..... This game can keep my older two entertained for a good 10 minute car ride and they get progressively louder as they grow more excited about what words they can come up with.

3. He is a total stuffed animal lover.  He has two different puppies on his bed "Raja" and "Maggie" that he loves to drag nearly everywhere he goes.  I have to admit, it makes my heart melt a little bit when I see him stroking them while he watches tv or as he falls asleep at night. 

4. Robby loves anything that includes races.  He will spend hours a day setting up and practicing having his monster trucks, cars, trains, planes, etc race each other.  He is very specific on who is going to win and who will crash during the said race.  He also likes to personally participate in races with his siblings, particularly when he wins.  He still isn't the greatest at good sportsmanship when he loses but loves to help others develop this attribute by trying to calm them down when they're not the winners. This is hilarious to watch!

5. Loves to play "Connect Four: Launchers". He makes up his own rules depending on who he's playing with and frequently ends up with way more turns than me----or maybe I am just a sore loser about always losing to Rubba's :)

A semi-ugly picture of part of the Bday dinner---I was mostly proud of myself for finding a recipe and making the homemade meatballs on the right of the plate.  This was a brand new recipe for me :)

Robby was so excited when it was finally time to open presents that evening on his Birthday!

I absolutely love how Maddie made him this picture for his birthday.  I loved how much time Maddie spend on this project, and how excited she was to give it to him.

Rubba in his brand new Fox Hat (that has now become E's because he is in love with that thing and Robby's semi-indifferent about it)