Tukk is 4!

My baby is 4 years old. Aaaaaahhhhhh! 

In the tradition of the Bott blog, I shall now proceed to make you all gag as I list the (extremely cheese) things we love about the birthday boy.  

 He’s one of the few people who appreciates cookies as much as I do. I have a hard time saying no to him when he asks me if I want to make cookies with him. This is great for him, seeing as how he's 4 and still weighs around 25 pounds. But this is not so good for me, seeing as how I'm - ahem - 29 and weigh - cough choke - 105 pounds. Yes, let's go with that.

Whenever he gets busted doing something naughty he says, “Is this naughty? Mom, I wub ya!” And then he's instantly out of trouble.

He thinks dandelions are the most beautiful flowers on the planet, and when he finds one he always brings it to me for a present.

He’s still snuggly. He’ll ask us all the time, “Will you please come sit by me? Will you suggle me? Mom, let’s go do suggles. Will you hold my hand?” Holy crap. I love it. I will "suggle" that boy til he's in college, if he'll let me.

He also runs up out of the blue and says, "Guess what Mom? I wub ya!" or "Dad, guess what I wub? You!" Or he'll run up, yell "Surprise!" and then give you a hug or kiss. I'm pretty sure it's the greatest thing ever.  

He thinks all he has to do is yell "Hulk Smash!" and he's literally as strong as the Hulk. Coming from such a tiny package it's completely adorable. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is scrawny. 

He's the happiest kid I've ever met. He's always smiling, and he's always SUPER excited about whatever we have going on. Going camping? Fantastic! Going to a grandma's house? Amazing! Taking the garbage can out to the road? Completely awesome! We took the boys hiking for the 4th of July, and by the end of the hike his shoes were soaked, he wasn't wearing any pants (his shorts weighed about 15 pounds because they were so wet and muddy by then), he was tired, he was hungry, but he was still doing the Tukker Shuffle (it's a sort of hop skip limp run he's perfected) and singing to himself, "I wub Yaya, I wub Gampa, I wub Cauldew, I wub hiking." 

This year I bought some edible cake stickers and let Tukk and Caulder decorate the cake themselves. Normally I plan some gigantic cake making project and spend hours on it, but this time I wanted to give them the experience of decorating a cake. This decision had nothing to do with the fact that my cakes always turn out so horribly that I wanted to be able to blame the ghastly finished product on my children. I was motivated solely by love... not shame....

Of course there was a pinata.

And he got a new "coota!" He spent 3 days saying "I'm so happy I got a new coota!"

We also took him to Chuck E. Cheese for the big day.

These two jailbirds helped him celebrate.

And we had a hard time tearing this boy away from the games.

Tukk's favorite ride was the monster truck, of course. He went on it about 5 times.

 Last year for his birthday he wanted a fishing pole and a shovel. This year he wanted a horse, a cow, a reindeer, and rubber boots. You read that right: rubber boots. There is some seriously powerful redneck blood flowing through his miniature veins. Unfortunately, we really let the birthday boy down in the farm department (reindeer are not as easy to come by as you might think), but Grandma Sarah came through on the rubber boots. He couldn’t wait to take them to her house so he could, and I quote, “go out with the cows and step in poop.” As if that weren’t enough to make a mother proud, this morning when I was loading him into the old mini van I’m borrowing from my grandma (the Subaru is starting to feel her age) he said, “Mom, this mini van is awesome. We gotta buy one of these!”

Dream big, my little redneck… dream big.

We love this birthday boy so much. It is physically impossible to be around the Tukk and not smile. He is amazing. We feel extremely lucky to be able to call him ours... he was definitely worth all the trouble. ;)