My Baby Boy is 4

Noah's 4th birthday was this past Saturday.  It's so hard to believe that our youngest is 4 already. I remember when we found out we were going to have a boy after having two girls, I was so nervous!  I didn't know what to do with a boy.  But he has been so much fun.  He has quickly extinguished any fears we had of him being girly since all he has is sisters - he is definitely all boy! It has been amazing to me how he just picked up on all the things boys do and like without us pushing it on him.  When he was born we were trying to decide on the name. It was between Noah and a couple of others.  We decided to look at the meaning of each name we were considering.  At that point he was such a quiet, content baby, and the name Noah means calm and peaceful.  That's how we decided that it was the perfect name.  Boy has he proved us wrong!  But he really is a sweet and loving little boy and we love him so much. He brings so much fun and excitement to our family and I can't imagine not having him be part of our family. 

For his birthday he got a Speed Racer bike, an electric guitar (so he can jam with his dad), and a Spiderman costume.  I'm not sure which was his favorite - he loved them all.  We went to the movies to see Kung Fu Panda, and went to dinner at Red Robin.  It was really a fun day!

Blueberry Pickin'!

We have heard from several families that they enjoy going to a blueberry patch in the early summer to pick their own blueberries.  I have to admit that I don't buy and use very many blueberries, but I thought it sounded like a fun new family experience.  So we set out on Saturday morning to a place fairly close by to pick ourselves some blueberries.  It was really a lot of fun! We ended up filling two 1 gallon buckets.  After coming home and freezing and bagging them, I ended up with about 36 cups of yummy, fresh blueberries!  We made a blueberry cobbler for dessert on Sunday, and I have plans for making syrup, jam, and other tasty things! I'm thinking this might become a new Hooper Family tradition each summer!

A Summer Glitch

Last week we had a first in our family.  Actually it happened 2 weeks ago, but we didn't know it until last week.  Noah was playing on the couch a couple of Sundays ago, pretending it was a garbage truck.  He was sitting on the arm of the couch and fell off head first onto the tile floor. He broke the fall with his arms.  I was fixing dinner and didn't actually see all of this, but heard the cries that resulted.  We checked him out, and everything seemed fine.

  Over the course of that week he seemed fine, but would complain now and then that his arm hurt.  Finally by Saturday when it still was hurting we decided to have it x-rayed.  Sure enough, it was broken.  We took him to an Orthopedic doctor on Monday so that he could get it casted - he chose blue of course (not because of any collegiate affiliation). Luckily he only has to have it on for 3 weeks total, the week before we knew it was broken actually counts as a week of recovery.  So we have 1 week down, 2 to go.  It has been a real drag having to figure out what to do with 3 kids during the summer that doesn't involve water.  We are counting down the days!