Happy Birthday Mr. Finn!

Our little man is officially four years old. We hosted a friends of Finn party last Saturday at our house. The original plan was to celebrate at the Northeast Harbor playground, but it was threatening rain. We called an audible at the last minute, and just invited everyone over. Surprisingly, the parks around here don't really have pavilions like they do out west. It would be nice to have that, considering how fast the weather can change here. Anyways, Mal made an Italian butter cream cake, which she wasn't satisfied with (she nailed it a week later for our family celebration). Finn seemed fine with hosting it at our house, mostly because we had just gotten our chickens. He was so eager to show everyone. He had been telling everyone and anyone, wherever he was, that we just got chickens. He is one proud farmer. 

I love this photo. Finn got a spyglass for his birthday. Madie was showing him how to use it. The conversation went a little bit like this: "Okay, what you need to do is close one eye, and look in with the other. Here, let me show you." 

Mal, Finn, and BW look at aunt Alexa's gift to Finn. 

On Monday when Mal went grocery shopping, she asked Finn what he wanted for his birthday breakfast. Finn said he wanted cereal, Captain Crunch to be exact. We don't normally buy that kind of cereal, so it was a special treat. He ate it for breakfast and lunch, until it was soon gone. I got up with him to get breakfast early on Thursday morning and asked him what he wanted. He said he wanted cereal. I looked in the cupboard...it was empty. "Finn, I'm sorry buddy. Your cereal is all gone." The saddest look came over him. He sulked his shoulders and looked at the ground. Yeah, he really likes that cereal. 

Since late last year, Finn has been asking me to take him fishing. I'm not sure what started this thirst for fishing, but he has been consistently wanting to go. Every year, I take off the day of or the day near the birthday of everyone in my family to do something fun for/with them. For Finn, I hatched an idea. A camping and fishing trip! He loves camping, and has been wanting to go fishing. This will be perfect! On Friday, we packed the car and got ready to go. We had to run a few errands in Ellsworth before we headed to Donnell Pond. After we ran all of our errands, we headed to Finelli's for pizza before our trip. He said, "We are still going camping, right?" He was worried we weren't going to have time to go camping with all the time we were spending on errands. "Of course we are going camping still! I just thought it would be fun to take you out for pizza before our trip!" And Finelli's is always a good choice. New York pizza, right in Ellsworth, Maine. 

After pizza, we headed to Donnell Pond. We were actually able to launch from the Daltons camp, which shaved off a few minutes to our trip. I loaded up the canoe, woke up Finn to get in the canoe. I would estimate the distance from their camp to Redmans Beach is about 1.5 miles. It was pretty choppy getting there, especially when we got into the middle of the lake. When we got to the beach, there was an employee there cleaning up the latrines. Other than that, we had the entire beach to ourselves! That's actually what I was hoping for. Complete privacy, nobody to mind. Just play, and enjoy. 

Since it was overcast when we got there, it was a little chilly. Finn liked to sit on his chair and wrap his towel around himself like a blanket. 

We packed swords, dump trucks, baseball/bat, fishing poles...you name it! And we did all of those in a circuit that we did 5-6 times before dinner. 

And the food! S'mores, hot dogs, and muffins. Those are a few of Finn's favorite things. 

Although we didn't catch anything, we got to practice casting and using the equipment. Hopefully we'll be frying fish by the end of the summer. 

The sun came out in the evening, and it finally warmed up! The bugs weren't too bad either. It could have been much worse. 

We hung out in the tent for a while, playing Go-Fish, and playing "What's your favorite...". A few questions into the latter, I decided I needed to start writing these down! Here is what I got: 

What's your favorite....

1. Color: green
2. Pizza: pepperoni
3. Ice cream: blueberry
4. Breakfast: Captain Crunch cereal
5. Lunch: Captain Crunch cereal
6. Animal: Crocodile
7. Movie/Show: Octonauts 
8. Shirt: Dog shirt
9. Thing to do in the snow: Snowball fight
10. Thing to do at the beach: Camping
11. Thing to do on the water: Throwing rocks
12. Thing about camping: Sleeping in the tent with Dad, playing "little" games
13. Place to camp: Donnell Pond
14. Drink: Water, "...because it's so healthy!"
15. Thing to do outside: Look at the chickens and pretend games
16. Thing you want to do this summer: Learn to swim under water
17. Fun place to go: Playland Adventures
18. Thing about Elvis: "Snuggling with him. I miss him because he is all alone by himself at home."
19. Place to go on an airplane: Nana and Papa's (he was a stow-away in Mal's belly when we visited Saipan...)
20. Thing about Nana and Papa's: The cold tub (hot tub that isn't heated). "I like it when you and Mumma go to the temple and I stay with Nana and Papa."
21. Transportation: airplanes
22. Best friend: Logan
23. Thing about Primary: Treats, "...but raisins are not some sort of treat."
24. Thing about Family Home Evening: Treats
25. Book: Calvin and Hobbes
26. Sport: Basketball, baseball, soccer
27. Vegetable: Carrots
28. Fruit: Blueberries, raspberries, blackberries
29. Camping food: Muffins
30. Bird: Bald eagle
31. Time of year: Summer
32. Instrument to learn: Violin
33. Toy: Wooden boat 

When Finn started to stir in the morning, I leaned over and said "Finn, today you are four years old!" He had been asking pretty much every day "Is today my birthday?" He replied to me, "Ugggghhhhhpppphhhh, I got a hair in my mouth." Nicely put, Finn. We got up, ate some blueberry muffins, played some baseball, then broke camp. We headed out with our fishing poles, ready to reel. What an adventure! When we were paddling near some boulders, there were some boulders that barely breached the surface, and looked like alligator heads. Finn pointed to them with a really worried look on his face. "Dad, what are those?!" Leading up to this trip, he seemed concerned about sharks, alligators, and crocodiles being in the water. We reviewed again and again how they would probably die in Maine, because they don't like the snow. I suppose you can't help but think about it with a young imagination. 

Later that day, we had some family celebrations. Finn opened presents, and we had cake and ice cream after dinner. 

Finn trying out his sun glasses...he was looking at everything through his new sunglasses from Grammy and Grampy!

And he loved his lava lava. 

This has been in our closet since Christmas. We were going to return it, then tried to re-sell it. Finn's had his eye on it for months. The other day, I just said, "Let's just give it to him." This was his reaction!

For the win!

And we topped off the day with some amazing cake that Mal made. Happy Birthday, Finn!