"..cause I am just so big now."

Frederick is basically all grown up now, at least in his mind.  It is pretty amazing to be four.  He was spotlighted recently in primary (the church program for kids under 12) and when they were asking him what he was going to do when he grew up he replied, "well, I am going to poop in the potty."

Potty training was a big step for Frederick and one that he was not sure he wanted to be bothered with.  A couple of weeks before his birthday he decided he was ready and has not had a single accident since. As worried as I was that it was never going to happen, it did and as I really dislike cleaning up after accidents there is great benefit to letting kids make that step when they decide to. 

Back to the spotlight.  When he was pressed with another thing he wanted to do when he grew up he replied that he would take care of cats.  Frederick does love cats, and they him.  The cat above was living in our front yard.  Frederick befriended him and named him Lehi.  He is a very nice young cat and didn't even hold a grudge when Alex whisked him off to work to neuter and vaccinate him.  Hopefully he will help keep our gopher population in check.

 

With all the birthdays we had so close together we had a celebration with Kristi and Mark's family to honor Ruthann, Travis and Frederick.  It is always fun to get together with them and we enjoyed the sunny weather.    

Brandon and Travis got Frederick this gun for his birthday.  He was quite delighted by it and especially excited when they took him out and had a battle with him in our forest.  He greatly loves his brothers and is so excited when they play with him.  He and Travis are starting to spend more and more time together as they both don't really like to play alone and have some common interests (Travis is training him in legos).

His Grandparents got him a set of gardening tools.  As you can see they were a hit.  He spent a lot of time over the following week working outside with us and was very delighted to use his tools.  

 Here is our garden area, Frederick big plans for his spot.  In this picture he is working with Alex on getting all the posts in for the fence.  When they were done he put an "F" in the cement around one post to show that he had helped put them in.

Frederick is a joy!  He is a boy of a thousand and one facial expressions and quite the imagination.  Our life is greatly enriched by his presence.