Patrick turns 5!

While I'm on a roll, I might as well post about Patrick turning five!  His request was that his party was purple and pink with superheroes...cool.  I can totally do that?  I changed it up a bit with doing navy and plum colors with batman decorations hanging everywhere.  His response, "that's fine.  I like blue too."  He kills me.

This was the night before when I didn't have all of the food out.  His other request was to have ice cream, cookies and pop.  And then when he went to his cousin's birthday, he decided blowing out candles was needed as well so he settled for a cheesecake.

Aside from the food, I wanted to keep things casual and EASY so we threw a pool party.  We broke out multiple pools, filled up water balloons, bought water guns and let the kids go crazy(although somehow the adults ended up as wet as the kids).

Opening presents before the party.

 Overall I felt like he had a really great day.  Aiden got a little jealous and as he put it, "this is not the greatest day ever" since Patrick kept saying it was the greatest day ever. ha

A few things about Patrick...

-He wears his emotions on his sleeve.  This one is soooo hard for me.  I've always been one not to wear my emotions on my sleeve, and I've always struggled with people who do.  Passion is not my strong point.  He's teaching me to have patience with it and I love how deeply he loves

-He is the most social kid I know.  He would play with others all day, every day.  We just had a garage sale and he would go up to people and say, "Are you finding everything alright?  Anything I can help you with?  Did you see the stuffed animals?"  It cracked us up

-He's soo excited to start kindergarten

-He loves art and puzzles

-He started violin and piano but piano is the one that stuck.  After 17 years of teaching, I can honestly say he will be my favorite student

-He plays hard.  And when I say hard, I mean really hard

-Nothing is half way.  It's all or nothing.

-He can be my biggest helper in the world and I've actually come to rely on him a lot.

-He can be extremely hyper and has a lot of energy.  Another thing I struggle with but it brings a great dynamic to our family

-He loves to read/look through books

-Everyone is his instant friend and if someone calls him a friend back, he is over the moon happy

-Sometimes he's so intense he scares other kids away which is so sad for me to see

A quote that stands out this years:

P: Mom, can I brush your hair?

Me: Not right now, bud.

After several times of him asking I give in so he starts brushing my hair and looking at me in the mirror 

P: I want to brush your hair because every girl deserves to be a princess, mom.

Where does he get that from!?

Man, we love this kid.  He has definitely been a struggle, particularly for me, but I step back and see he's teaching me sooo much.  I love him with all my heart.  Truly.  And I can't wait to see him take that next step in life in kindergarten.  Ahhh!!  That's a weird thought.