Happy Birthday to my sweet boy! I love you so much. I love your awesome giggle. I love that you spend half of your time pretending to be a baby doggie, and the other half snuggling up in Mama's lap. I love that you know just what to do with swords, and ask me to stick them down the back of your shirt like it's a scabbard. I love that you want to dance dramatically just like your cousin Barrett. I love that you want a band aid every day even though I'm not sure we've ever actually used one on a real cut. I love that your sister is your best friend, teacher and partner in crime, and that you sneak out of your bed whenever she asks you to come get Mama. I love that you want to hold your baby sister and bring her toys, and tell me you are her Daddy. You are already watching over her. Such a great big brother. You love shows, you sing along with your favorite songs in the car, and have a great pirate "Arrr" and a dinosaur "Roar!!" You don't really want to eat food unless it's portable, and who can blame you when you are so much fun to play with? You play board games following real rules, and you have been asking me for more than a year when it's your turn to go to school. You are amazing, sweet, imaginative and so much fun to be around. I'm so glad I'm your Mama.
When I asked Donovan his favorite things, here are his responses:
Color: Dz says green and blue. Both
Toy: Ball, awesome sword
Coloring
Outside: Be in the sand. Dig dig dig
What game: Lost Puppies
Pretend to be a Doggie
Book: Dinosaurs
Build a city in Legos
Outing: To the circus!!!
To Papa's House and the Park
Song: We are the Dinosaurs (Laurie Berkner) Doodlebugs
And here are what I thought Donovan's favorite things from his second year were:
Craft: Stickers. He has amazing precision with sticker placement. He loves to fill a paper starting from the outside, going all the way around, and then filling in the middle. He spends hours on stickers!
Play-Doh: His other long term favorite craft of the year =)
Toys:
Rescue Pack: Donovan has a backpack just like Diego from his second birthday party, and he has used it all year. He seriously wants to go to school and packs his backpack about half the days that we take sister to school.
Swords: He plays with his foam swords all the time, which led me to purchase the Batman bopper toy so he had something to attack. He recently discovered the ninja turtles, which led to wearing two katanas in the back of his shirt like Leonardo. So cute!
Balls: Yes, these are still his favorite thing =) Soccer, baseball, random bouncy balls, fetching the ball as a baby dog, we play with balls every day.
His bicycle: Eric got him a lowrider type tricycle, and he adores it.
Beep Beep the push car: This was his first birthday present from Serenity, and we still use it. Mostly just around the house these days, since he wants to ride his bike when he goes out, but he still greets Beep beep like a long lost friend whenever we bring him in the house.
Green Lantern cape and mask: Donovan was obsessed with Green Lantern all year. He can recite the Green Lantern chant, and he was green lantern for Halloween. I made him a mask last year and he used it a lot this year, and I made a cape too. =)
Apple Jack his stick pony: DZ is convinced Apple Jack is a boy pony, and he's his favorite. He has an apple jack fleece hat that he wore all winter, and got the stick pony for Christmas.
Zoomer: Still one of his best friends, the dinosaur pillow racer is still so much fun!
Princess Dresses, especially the blue Periwinkle dress
Hats and gloves, especially his dinosaur hat and Apple Jack hat. He has robot gloves and dinosaur gardening gloves.
Pillows
Horses: He pretended to ride horses a lot in the fall! And he loved riding them at the fair and the pumpkin patch!
Catapults (Various ways to fling balls around. Penguin popper, yardstick ping pong ball launcher, his catapult from Uncle Jack, lego catapult)
Magnetic drawing toy
Legos
DVD
Diego: Still love it =) We play animal rescuers a lot still using the animals from his animal rescuer birthday.
Backyardigans: Donovan loves this one, probably because of all the singing and dancing. Since January this show has been the favorite.
Tad: We watch a lot of the Leapfrog movies, especially Letter Factory and Math Circus.
Books: Donovan loves to read books, but he usually seems to just grab the nearest book The only times I have to go looking for a specific book is if he asks for a Dog book, like If You Give a Dog a Donut.
Dinosaur Roar: Actually makes sound
Dinosaurs (touch and feel)
Dora Halloween and lift the flap books. And the Dora I Can Read series, we read that a lot too.
Favorite things to do:
Board Games!!!! He loves them all, will play them one after the other. We even started playing by the rules this year for a lot of them. He especially loves Sequence for Kids, and Zingo. We've also had a lot of fun with some cooperative games, like Mermaid Island and Lost Puppies. He likes Don't break the ice, Busytown Eye Found it and Busy Airport, Candyland (which he calls Candyman)Uno Moo, basically everything in our game cabinet he has played and loved.
He also really loves doing puzzles. He can do up to 24 piece puzzles easily and by himself, although he prefers to have company. We have wooden dinosaur puzzles, Jake and the Neverland Pirates Puzzle which was a big hit, and several Dora puzzles.
From Daddy's closet, he often plays with the pieces from Ticket to Ride, attempts shortened versions of trouble and sorry, and he loves playing with all Daddy's dice.
Stuffed Animal: Most of the year it was Jaggy the Jaguar, but he just recently got Ziggy-Zaggy the Dinosaur from a zoo visit which may be next year's favorite. =)
LC: Rocket Speller
Computer: Nick Jr., Starfall, PBSkids.org, especially any SuperWhy games with the dog.
Activities:
Swimming. Last summer, he hated water to the point that he didn't even want to take baths and wash his hair. After two weeks of swim lessons every day he loved it again! We took lessons every week this year and he's progressed amazingly well! Daddy was his swim buddy, and he looked forward to it every week. Just this spring he graduated from the current class into a class where he swims with just a teacher, no parent. It was amazing and a little sad for Daddy, who misses being the swimming buddy. Swinging: Papa built us a new swing set, and Donovan got a big boy swing seat. He's pretty good with it, but he hasn't quite mastered pumping yet.
He loves his cousins and always wants to roughhouse with them. Casey and Barrett sort of taught him to do this, falling down and making him laugh hysterically. They might be sorry now since he does it whenever he sees them =) And I know Carson and Raegan would prefer he not attack them...
He loves flying on Daddy's feet, and climbing on him. And he loves it when Eric builds slides out of mattresses.
Donovan took music classes in the fall with Mama, and Soccer in the spring with Daddy. He loved both! He's been asking me about music class recently so we might need to start that again.
Grand old Flag Song: Serenity taught this to Donovan when she learned it at school, and he says "Sing It!" anytime we see an American Flag.
More favorite pics:
