Donovan's Fourth Birthday Update!
Donovan's Favorite Things
Four years old! Donovan is truly an amazing boy. He is thoughtful and silly, cuddly and kind. He thinks of things like mailing hearts to friends at school, and making funny sounds to make Maia laugh. He loves to catch bad guys in traps and swing his swords, and he loves to make snuggly beds for his stuffed animal friends and care for animals. He is best friends with his big sister and takes care of his baby sister. I love being his Mama! I am so lucky!
I like to record some of his favorite things each year. His absolute favorite from this year is definitely animals. All year he has had a special animal that he is drawn to. At first it was Arctic Wolf. We watched Frozen, and he decided that wolves were Elsa's special friends because they try to stop Anna and Kristoff from getting to the mountain. So whenever Serenity was Elsa, he was her Arctic Wolf friend. He even wore wolf ears to Disney. =) He wears his arctic wolf pajamas as soon as they come out of the wash. Right now his animal is the tiger. We've had tiger school, and he asks me to grow trees and grass to make tiger habitats. He will be making a tiger garden instead of a fairy garden at his sister's birthday. He loves dogs too. We will be having a Paw Patrol birthday because of it =) His favorite show is still Diego, and he adores rescuing animals.
Donovan's favorite toys are probably balls and swords. He plays longshot with Daddy, throwing balls across his room, and he plays with basketballs, snowballs, oh just all the balls. =) He told me he especially loves his swinging soccer ball, which was the subject of his first ever letter to Santa. He also has quite a nice collection of swords. He has a Leonardo sword, and asked me to sew him a Leonardo mask to go with the shell he got as a birthday gift last year. His favorite Disney souvenir was the sword he got at Cinderella's castle. That has had to be wired back together it's been loved so much. And he loves the sword he got from the circus, which has also been hot glued back together. =) After that, it's probably his animal collection. During quiet time he will often collect his favorites, which include Ziggy Zaggy the dinosaur we got at the zoo, Jaggy, which also came from the zoo the day we met the baby jaguars, and Arctic Wolf, (who is technically a fox, but we got him from the World Wildlife Federation because Donovan wanted to support arctic animals as his charity of choice this year.) Oh, and Okapi! Found on our trip to the Great Wolf Lodge, and chosen because of one of his favorite Diego episodes.
He adores Legos now. He especially loves following instructions, and can even do the Lego Junior sets independently. I've set him several Lego Challenges, and he liked that too. At Christmas, he and Serenity shared a really big lego set that we set up as an advent calendar, so they could do a little every day. They would bounce out of bed and run downstairs to get to that days Legos =)
His favorite books are his Paw Patrol books and 5 minute Marvel Stories. He really loves super heroes. This year he told me way back during the summer that he wanted to be Batman for Halloween, and he never wavered. Thanks to his determination, he got to have his sisters dressed as "BatCat" (Serenity's own superhero creation), and Supergirl. Eric dressed as Green Arrow. And even Ann and John participated, dressing as Batgirl and the Riddler.
The thing Donovan asks to do most is play games. He LOVES board games. He even says that he wants to learn to read, just so he can play even more of Daddy's games! =) His favorite game this year was probably X-men, which he has gradually added all the rules to until he plays it just right! With Mama, his favorite is Lost Puppies. It's a really good game we all enjoy actually. He also does really well with Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert, and Castle Panic from the Daddy Games list. He has a great attention span for games. One day Eric tried to play as many times as Donovan asked and he just barely managed. Oh, and Donovan went through an UNO phase where we played for hours on end!
Donovan loves electronics. He can often be found with sitting with Serenity, their heads bent over an ipad. He especially loves playing Moose Math and helping Mama with Farmville. On the computer he plays Animal Jam and Nick Jr. (Especially Paw Patrol and Diego!) Which leads directly to his favorite shows, again Paw Patrol and Diego. =) His favorite pup is Zuma, the water rescue dog. He also had times where Rocky the recycling pup was his favorite, and Chase the police pup.
Donovan loves to dress up =) Especially as Batman, but also as Jake the Pirate, as a Knight, a Guard, or some random creation all his own!
Donovan's extracurricular activities this year included swimming, soccer, and a little baseball. He liked them, but not so much that I felt a need to re-enroll him. I think he needed downtime more than activities.
This was Donovan's first year of school! He LOVES school. Except for two weeks when he fussed about being left (not the first two weeks, but a random two weeks), he skipped into class every day with a smile on his face and barely time for a hug from Mama. His teachers say he is a happy boy who is friends with everyone. So true! He loved telling me about his day, which was so nice and a little surprising =) He would sing me songs he learned, or tell me about things he made. He went three days this year, and he is VERY excited about going more days next year.
This year, Donovan learned to swing on his own, he longs to be able to do monkey bars at the park, and he asked for his own big boy bike (with training wheels).
His favorite food is cinnamon rolls. He pretty much only likes cinnamon rolls. That's not exactly true, he does like oatmeal and cinnamon toast at his Papa's house.
Some more highlights of this year:
Donovan's first trip to Disney World
Fantastico in Texas, including the Great Wolf Lodge, and a Super Fantastico Indiana Jones Adventure.
