Los Grovers: Easton turns four.

Thursday was Easton's fourth birthday. My big boy awoke to his family singing Happy Birthday to him. He couldn't believe he was finally four! No more three and three quarters, but four! He opened some presents right from the bed. Nana and Papa sent him an Easton ball glove and some baseballs, we gave him a set of Tinker Toys, but the most exciting gift, by far for Gabriela and Easton, and let's be honest, Lane too was Easton's nerf gun from Auntie Adie and family.

I took Willow to a doctor appointment, Lane dropped Gabriela off at Chess class, and then took Easton for a birthday daddy doughnut date.

While gabriela was at cooking class, we made Easton's birthday cupcakes and pizza dough because that was our birthday boy's special request: pizza with those little circles and a cupcake beside it.

Then Lane took the kids to the library to see a presentation on bats with live bats. Easton was so excited. Weal wive bats!

We watched a movie, enjoyed delicious pizza, and sang happy birthday again, this time with chocolate cake!

I can't believe my little guy is so big. He loves Star Wars still, zooming around on his bike, making potions outside, doing Harry Potter spells with his sister, and playing train tracks.

Easton loves his tie dye shirts, his pink cowboy boots. His favorite friends are Zace, Hudson, Tucker, Beck, and Ezra. Easton doesn't really care for eating. But he does love fruit, especially bananas and pomegranates, pesto, and mac and cheese. He loves to write words and letters down, and is starting to recognize certain words in writing. Easton can often be found with a pile of books. Right now, he's on a Magic Treehouse kick. He also has been requesting to do his own school work and sat down to do a whole section of phonics in one night.

Easton is turning into quite the chess player. He sets up the board perfectly, without any help. He "castles" his king, tries to explain why he's put you in check make, he recites chess rules from Gabriela's class, but has no idea how to move pieces. In fact, every piece he moves results in the other player losing a piece. It's pretty funny. I love that he's so into it.

Easton is surprising us with how warmly he has welcomed his big brother role. He constantly asks to snuggle Willow, he always wants to hold her and love on her. Easton is so excited when he helps settle down Willow, and announces that she stopped crying because she saw her big brother. And he's so protective. If anyone is having questionable behavior, he shouts, "be careful with my baby sitzter!"

Easton, my sweet, loving, tender hearted, boy... (Except when it's time to eat dinner or brush teeth). He is such a happy soul, he wants to be all grown up, but he's still my snuggle bug and I just love him.