Toby is grrrreat!

We've just recently celebrated Toby's 4TH birthday!  My little man is getting all grown up. For his birthday, he wanted us to go the zoo together, (like we did for Charlotte's birthday last year,) and he wanted a yellow cake, with chocolate frosting and a T-Rex, and a soccer ball on it and his favorite colors blue and green... but we'll get to that in a moment.

 These are a pair of robots, that Toby built, dancing. I don't know why he poses like this so often.

This is a fort that Toby built during Jake's naptime one day.  He truly is our little engineer. 

For his birthday, like I said, we went to the Riverside Zoo in Columbia, SC.  This time we took the tram to visit the Botanical Gardens for the first time and they were really nice.  This was in the little children's area and you could play music on it by hitting it with a stick like a xylophone. 

We have to ride the carousel whenever we go to the zoo.  (Jakey loved this.) 

 Almost got all 3 kids' attention.

Our big 4 year old boy had a great, sweaty day.  It was 96 degrees out by the time we left in the afternoon.  Around Toby's neck he is proudly wearing his new "finoculars" he picked out in the gift shop as his birthday present. 

This is his soccer, dinosaur, blue & green cake.  It is not pretty. 

But he liked it.  :) 

Hmmm, I wonder what he wished for. 

Toby is also playing soccer this season and as a veteran soccer player, is doing much better.  His team is called the Rapids, but he thinks it is called the Rabbits.  Goooo Rabbits! 

 Hangin' around with Coach Nick.

He really has improved and his coach this season is much more geared toward 3-4 year olds (yay!) Whenever Toby kicks the ball he yells, "heeee-yah!"

I seriously don't have words for how much I love this sensitive, sweet, handsome little man.  Every year I worry that he will grow out of wanting to cuddle with his mom or telling me his secrets, but thankfully it hasn't happened yet.  I hope he never does!  It will be a very sad day if and when it happens.

Here is Toby's birthday interview:

What is your favorite color? Blue and green and brown.
What is your favorite food? Banana and oranges and apples and pineapple and broccoli and peas and cranberries. (this is a much healthier list than last year.)
What do you like to play? Build with my blocks and look at my fish and soccer and feed my fish.
What's your favorite animal? A frog and an elephant.
What's your favorite movie? Blue's Clues and Batman and Spiderman.
What's your favorite song? "The Snowman melted in the sun" (Once there was a snowman.)
What do you want to be when you grow up? The sign maker (he's fascinated by road signs right now,) and I'm gonna build houses too, but not building roads, only houses, and I'm gonna be in a dumptruck.
What's your favorite thing to do with Charlotte? We love to get flowers for you (me- awwww.)
What's your favorite thing to do with Jacob? Sword fight with him carefully.

PS.  This is my 300th blog post, and I've now been blogging for 6 years.  Time flies.  ;)