Today is Donovan’s fourth birthday!

Donovan requested that we go to IHOP. He’s been into pancakes lately. Seriously, he likes me to make up stories about us going to IHOP and then we talk about all the different kinds of pancakes you can get there, some real, some made up (like gooseberry pancakes, which he made up).

(Hmm, just occurred to me, this is a golden opportunity to work the word “flapjacks” into his vocabulary.)

Anyway, ultimately both my parents and Carla’s parents were able to make it and we all met at IHOP about 8:00 this morning. We had a few presents, and Carla had made a birthday cookie cake and had four candles for him to blow out. Donovan and Corinne both were very excited. Donovan got to ride there with me in my Jeep (I had to drive separately to go onto work). Corinne, predictably, hollered until we sat a plate of sausage in front of her, and then once again she was sweet as sugar! All in all, for a weekday morning, not bad.

I don’t have a picture from today, but here is a recent picture of Donovan and Corinne watching something on a portable DVD player.

Also, here are the latest stats from their most recent checkups a few weeks ago:

Donovan
Height: 40″ (50th percentile)
Weight: 34 lbs (40th percentile)

Corinne
Height: 31″ (80th percentile)
Weight: 24 lbs (75th percentile)
head circumference 75th percentile

Lately, instead of reading books to him, Donovan wants me to tell him stories. He wants me to make up a story about him and, almost always, his cousins Joe and Anna. He wants the stories to be very normal sorts of things, like a story about him and his cousins at the beach, or the park, or the zoo, or at IHOP, or camping out in a tent. He makes up half of the stories himself, correcting me or making suggestions as I go along.

Carla made a few notes today. She noted, “Donovan was singing Veggie Tales’ ‘God is Bigger than the Boogie Man’ song.”  Then she said “you look older,” and he replied “and I can sing better too!”.