Look Who's Four!

For Aiden's fourth birthday (on January 5th...ahem) we went to Chuck-E-Cheese's because that's 'where a kid can be a kid' and we figured he just wasn't kid enough...HA.  (In a rare mood today, excuse me...)  Anyways, we went to Chuck-E-Cheese's with his Grandma and Grandpa Phillips, Aunt McKenzie, and baby cousin Jaxon.  We took him here on his second birthday, but I think he had much more fun this time around.  Rex showed him the ropes now that he's tall enough to do more of the games.  Aiden, that is.  Not Rex.

We ate cardboard pizza and some soda and cupcakes.  All mandatory birthday stuff.  Aiden got some fun windup cars from his grandma, a hotwheels storage case for all his cars from Aunt McKenzie, and a bike helmet and very annoying bike horn to go with it.  (What I was thinking at the time of purchase, I still wonder...)

Aiden hasn't changed much in his birthday cake attack methods.  Still looks the same as his very first birthday experience with cake.

 And I just had to include this cute picture of Sam in here.  Sam has been walking around everywhere with his new froggy boots he got for Christmas.  He can put them on himself, which we BOTH love, and throws a fit whenever we try to put any other shoe on him.

So now down to the things that make us smile about Aiden:

• Whenever I give a command without adding "please" (usually when I'm at my rope's end) Aiden responds with a salute and a "Yes, Sir, Mom!"  No joke.
• I just know that when Aiden grows up, he's going to be the kind of guy that gives everyone nicknames.  For now, we go through various nicknames each day depending on what has influenced our Aiden Bear last.  I have been "Princess" (my favorite), "Purple Bird Bomb", and "Green Alien."  Sam has been "Happy Monster", "Toad", and "Red Bird Bomb."  
• Through all this nickname choosing Aiden has fiddled with a couple nicknames for himself, but has stuck with "Iceman" for the most part.  He takes his role as Iceman quite seriously.  He will freeze any booby traps in my way that only he can see with his super powers.  He'll even correct me if I accidentally call him "Aiden," heaven forbid.  He has taken this so much to the extreme, in fact, that his preschool teachers had to come up with a specific rule just for him that Iceman only exists outside of school.  One of his teachers even came up to me to tell me that she YouTubed "Iceman" just to understand Aiden a bit better.
• Aiden tells super detailed and heroic stories.  Most all of them include aliens, monsters, and some sort of rescue.  Once I was eaten by a purple octopus but Aiden cut it open to save me.  My hero!
• He spontaneously and randomly says, "I love you, too, Mom" throughout the day, without me saying "I love you" first.  It's my prompt to tell him that I love him constantly.
• Aiden is very curious and vocal about his body.  He about exploded when he learned there were bones and muscles beneath his skin.  If he falls down, he will complain that he can't stand back up because he broke his legs.  And when Sam did something mean to him, Aiden quite simply said, "Sam, you broke my heart!"
• Aiden is almost always happy.  He can easily be distracted from anything that could cause sadness by just a smile and a "Woops!" or "Holy Cow!"  When he does cry, however, he will let the whole world know that he has a "BIIIIiiiiiiiiiig Owie!" and will narrate his whole crying mishap with, "I super SUPER BIG cry, Mommy!"  But moments later, still with tears in his eyes, he'll smile and say, "I stop crying, Mommy!"
• Aiden LOVES to sing his own songs.  His favorite is the "Doo doo doo" song which consists of - you guessed it - doo-doo-doo's the whole time.  He even adds a little happy dance to go with it as he sings.  He branches out every once in a while and will sing the "Snow" songs or the "Racing" song, each with the same pattern as the first.
• Dinners have always been hard for our little Iceman.  We've learned to bribe him with the fact that the more bites he takes, the stronger and bigger his muscles will get.  He is totally into getting big muscles....already.  Even when he's just getting out of the tub, he'll pause and look down at himself and say, "I so handsome!"  I think we have a future jock on our hands...

Here's to all the wonderful memories you are making for us, Aiden....I mean, ICEMAN!  We super SUPER love you!!