Happy Birthday To Peter!

Peter has become the funniest, craziest, joyful little boy that I know. He teases us, laughs with us, is learning to be a good big brother and knows how to play hard. Some of his favorite things are trains- watching them, reading about them or playing with them, reading books- Olivia, train books and Curious George are some of his favorites, playing with his friends- Julia, Oscar and Finn, and riding his bike to the playground,  the fountain park or to the river.

When you ask him how much he loves you he'll hold up his hands and put them an inch apart and say this much... until you look mad-- then he'll spread them all the way out. If he could pick he'd have oatmeal for breakfast everyday- and probably for every meal. His favorite color is green and he doesn't like to share it-

He and I celebrated his birthday the day before since I have to work on Thursday mornings. We took a trip around Winona to watch the model trains and to have a special treat.

 We started at the Watkin's Museum and watched the trains there- it is a model of Winona and Pete had fun picking out the places he knew.

 Ran around the museum for a little bit.

 and pretended that pete was willy wonka and that Emi was an Oompa Looma.

 Stopped by the Blue Heron for cookies and to read books for a little bit.

 On the way to the Hardware store we saw a crane lifting this new engine on the tracks. This was BIG.

 and finally ended at ACE Hardware and watched some more trains and talked to the guys who built it and are into model railroads. They told us about a few shows coming up in LaX.

 On his actual birthday we had a small party with his friends he sees regularly! We had dinner, played for a little bit and tried to break open the pinata!

 It took a lot of hits and some help, but we finally broke it open. I made it out of tissue paper and glue. That morning I decided it needed to be reinforced- looks like I could/should have left it as one layer for the 2/3 year olds!!

 Had cake

And Mike finally got to give Pete his pouch of beef jerky that he has been waiting to give him since he was born-- "man food"


Happy Birthday to our little monkey, Pete-star, We love you!