Clayton at FOUR

Our sweet Clayton is FOUR! I cannot believe that our Mr. Baby, the baby of our family is 4.  It seems truly impossible that four years could have passed since he was born. I feel like I still remember that day so vividly and his sweet little face and hair (only Zorio kid born with hair!). So sweet.  While it's hard to believe he's 4, it's true.  We were planning a big party with his friends in our backyard on the weekend of his birthday.  Spiderman was set to attend, and it was going to be a superhero party.  Unfortunately due to the stay at home order because of the Corona Virus, we had to postpone his party.  We are hopeful to reschedule it very soon though!  

Clayton wasn't too disappointed about his party, and actually seemed to have a fantastic birthday celebrating with our family!  He got to have a candle in his breakfast, lunch, dinner, and of course his birthday cake.  He got to open lots of presents, and we basically did everything he wanted all day.  Want to build two lego sets? We did. Want to play kinetic sand? We did.  He was so happy all day and continually thanked us all for his presents.  Made my heart happy that he could be so happy over a little stay at home birthday celebration.  So sweet.

Clayton at 4 years old....he is SO busy! He loves to be running, jumping, climbing.  He is super fast on his bike.  I basically have to run along with his bike to keep up.  I don't think I've ever seen little 4 year old legs be able to pedal so fast!  He enjoys playing outside-riding his bike, digging in the sand, playing baseball (talks about wanting to "be a baseballer"), playing laser tag, going on walks, fishing (although his favorite part is throwing the fish back in the water rather than catching it).

This year Clayton and I have really enjoyed our special Tuesday and Thursday mornings-the big 3 go to school for 3.5 hours on those mornings and he and I don't do chores or errands-we only do fun things together! I love this special time with him, and it's funny how to hear what he wants to talk about when it's just him.  We are planning that Clayton will start 2 morning a week preschool in the fall, so we will loose these mornings, but I have cherished them this year.

Clayton and I have also done some "school" this year together too.  His favorite things are counting and shapes...he likes uncommon shapes. He frequently says his favorite shapes are trapezoids and parallegrams...haha it's funny to me to have a favorite shape.  If it involves the dry erase board he likes doing school with it, but he's not been as crazy about pencil and paper but we're getting there.  He just doesn't have a love of making art yet, but we are getting there.

Clayton LOVES play doh and building tiny LEGOs.  He quickly moved on from playing with Duplo Blocks and builds great things with little Legos now, that I'm continually amazed with his fine motor skills and spatial reasoning skills to assemble things.  

We never quiet know what Clayton's going to say.  He definitely keeps us on our toes. He loves to make his siblings laugh and will willingly get in trouble and say a "potty word" in order to make the big three snicker.

Clayton is our super hero loving boy.  His favorites are batman and Spiderman.  I thought I knew about all things boy, but no one else ever much cared for the superheroes so I'm learning a lot about these now. 
Clayton is our superhero-loving, silly joke telling, rowdy playing, LEGO building, baseball loving, sweet, funny, smart, opinionated, independent, snuggly, wonderful little boy. I could go on and on about our sweet Clayton Michael, but I'll close this post with a few pictures from his birthday party at home and a few pictures from the past year.  We love Clayton, so much!  Happy 4th Birthday!

Clayton going to bed for the last night as a three year old.

kinetic sand as a birthday present and playing with it on your birthday! win!

Our neighbors were so kind to bring Clayton donuts on his birthday...they know he loves sweets!

Love how happy Clayton is in all of his pictures from his birthday.

The big kids gave him gifts and he gave them all big hugs.

Spiderman showing off his new spiderman costume.

He was so excited about each and every gift...I feel like this picture captured it!

We got a pinata..he loved it!

A combo of two of his favorite things...candy and baseball.

We didn't do too elaborate of a cake since we were just partying at home...I'll save the detailed one for the party.  He still loved it though!

Our baby.

Hugs for gifts

Four pancakes for a 4 year old.

Daddy and Clayton built his new Tye Fighter that he's holding in the picture.

Now the rest of the pictures are just some that I like from the last year.

Clayton has some great expressions.

Batman at Chickfila eating ice cream in January.

LOVES play doh

Asks constantly if we can go to a hotel.  Loves staying in a hotel.  Here he is in a hotel in Nashville in February.

Loves rainboots

Loves laughing!

LOVES the dinosaur playground!

Loves the beach and digging holes at the beach.

When I asked the kids recently where they wanted to go first when we could leave the house after the stay at home order ends, Clayton immediately knew.  He said, "THE BEACH! And Papa John's" Hah I'm not sure why Papa Johns other than he does love pizza. But he really loves the beach.

oh and cookies!