Henry’s 4th Birthday Special

Achieved our dream, baby.

Yes.

That's an Easter egg basket of homegrown eggs.

We do have an Easter basket of homegrown eggs. Some beautiful eggs.

Ty, you're getting the yellow out of there.

Getting my yolks.

What are you doing?

I'm making his ice cream cake. So I've been, I've been planning what I'm gonna do. I'm basically doing like a copycat Carvel or Dairy Queen ice cream cake. I grew up with Carmel, so that's why I'm going with that.

Yay!

Your birthday's coming up. It's tomorrow.

Yay.

We're gonna celebrate it in this vlog. How old are you?

10.

10?

Wow. You're the littlest 10-year-old I've ever met. How old's your mama?

7.

7? You're older than your mom. Yeah. Let's see what Jonah's doing. He's putting together, we're calling it his socks and underwear, but it's a It's an electric Jeep. He lost his in the hurricane several months ago, so we're replacing it with a new one. We've got a little hack we found on the internet to get these plastic tires to grip a little better. That's a nice table— table jigsaw you have there, buddy. Cut these. What are these tires for, like mountain bikes or something? Bikes.

But they're so tough.

They build them so Do you think you cut it to the right length? I haven't cut it yet. Oh, okay. Excess edges off so the tire will fit— fit— this bike tire will fit flat on his wheel. I think that'll work. How are you going to attach it? With screws and stuff. Is that going to sit nice? You put it on. I feel like that's going to sit nice. It is. Do you have little screws? Yeah. You have the right bit? Yep. Now make sure it's straight on there so it'll get weird. Going around if it's not. What are you doing in here, birthday boy? Oh, let's see that shirt. Birthday boy, 4 years old. What are you gonna do on your birthday?

Uh, go to Grandpa's and play toys.

Go to Grandpa's and play toys. Yeah. Okay, hurry up and go do chores so we can do this. Let me show you guys this. Grippy tires. You know how these electric cars are always spinning out? Yeah, we got a hack for that. We're gonna give him that present right after chores. Gotta go to Big Daddy's with him, and we got a very special meal with him. Pizza and, uh, Parmesan, uh, Alfredo. Fettuccine Alfredo. What you need?

I want you to help me do Blaze's ulcer medicine.

Okay, is it here?

Yeah.

Apparently we're gonna be— we got some things to do. We need to address Blaze. I think I have an idea about the problem of our wood boiler. And honey, our milk cow has slowed down significantly and may have a mastitis in another teat. Slow down in milk production? She's doing fine eating and drinking. Plus she's getting— she's gonna soon have a baby. So she may just be drying off. I've been having a time keeping this wood boiler neat. Doing some research, I didn't even burn my wood, and I'm thinking it may be because this is old wood and this is rotten. There's too much moisture in it because it's absorbed all the water. This is a gasification stove and has to have a, you know, well-seasoned wood. All the creosote that has developed in here. Yeah, it's just not It's not functioning properly with wet wood. I think this batch is better. Well, then I've sorted through the piles. Better, ready, seasoned. Let's see if it works. Hey, wait, why isn't that— why is that frozen? I don't know. Helps if we'd plug it in. I don't know. Did you figure out Blaze's ration?

Yeah.

Okay, good. California mastitis test. You can tell by looking, certainly in the back, the back right, it came out even snotty. It's the back left, is it? Sus now. Yeah, a little. Mom's got some Udder Cream coming. Very little milk from her. I say we dry her off, but Mom says if it's mastitis, you gotta Keep milking her. We got a treat. This is like an Icy Hot, gets blood flowing to the area. Not worth getting that on. If I can't drench her standing here, she won't eat it. Had a real rope halter, not a sheep's rope halter. These guys are alfalfa addicts, they'll probably eat it even if it's Got essential oils on it. We could get some fresh alfalfa and walk her back to her stanchion. Fresh alfalfa. Josiah's just gonna try to shove it up in there while she's eating. She won't let you get to her. Don't get hurt. Okay, don't, don't. Let's just get her in the stanchion, huh? You can go filter it, Josiah. Do you—

and wash it.

Hey, do you need help doing this? Hey, tell them to wash it too. Wash it too, please. Yeah, we should have done this before she started eating. There you go, you did it, you did it! You have more patience than I do. She's just messing it up. No, I think she's on her face. There you go, pull this as you do it. Ah, shit, it's not gonna work. All right, we'll do it tomorrow when she's hungrier. Okay, I've done all the chores. Nope, it should be hotter than that. It's only raised like 5 degrees. Let's see if it's flaming. See, it should be rip-roaring. When that's not up to temp, this thing should be rip-roaring. Look at that hissing. Could be the wood's wet, even though I tried to pick out the least rotten one. It's all sort of from the same stuff, so I think we need to try a whole different batch of wood. Look how it takes off when the door's open. So maybe an airflow issue, not even a wood issue. Hey, birthday boy! All right, guess what? I'm done. Have you all eaten breakfast? No. Let's go eat breakfast and then we'll do your present. Put aside the stress of that and life aside and enjoy our little boy. He's our fifth child to turn 4. I feel like 4 is a special age. He's definitely going from that toddler to young child. And he's our last child, so we better live it up. Hey, how's your cake?

Pretty hard. I was hoping that—

well, is this 3 layers?

So it's this one and this one and then the vanilla and then whipped cream all around. Oh my God, let's check.

We got a vanilla freezing. You've never seen so much socks and underwear in your life. Do you want him to— why don't we let him take the blankets off of it? Okay, I'm gonna do that. That's kind of covered bad. It kind of opens it. Okay, I'll go cover it. You're just gonna let him uncover it?

Or what about if we do like Grandma did?

Where we open the door. Okay, do that. Jonah, do your original idea. Get your sweater and toboggan on. What? His toboggan?

Am I gonna die?

Yeah.

You don't need that though. You don't need that thing.

This is fun. We're all together as a family on a Sunday morning. Started off cold, but it's gonna go away real quick. Okay, this is how Grandma What?

Which side is gonna open?

This one. Grandma presented a gift like this once.

What?

What? What? It's brand new, just like the one you had. No trepidation this time.

Time.

See if the grips let him get up the hill. Oh, it's not got weight on it. There you go. That's a tough hill. You gotta get out in the middle. It's different. Austin, now would be a good time to flash back 2 years ago when he got one of these.

Hello!

Oh, it got a bow on it. Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa. It goes faster. Oh, it does? Suck it to it, bud. Henry, what's this, a governor? Yeah.

Are you sure? Yeah.

Didn't Grandma gift him this 2 years ago?

This is the last one of these that we've ever owned.

Oh, it was last year. Our one-word theme for this year, after the hurricane, after the loss of Grandma: recover. This is part of it. Let's see, did that get you more speed? Let's go. Oh my gosh, yes! Mama picked it out and bought it. Josiah put it together and Jonah put on the special treads, and Gideon kept you distracted so you wouldn't find out. I paid for it.

Get that, take that, baby.

I thought you were shaming me. I paid for it, okay? Mom picked it out and coordinated it. Everybody had a part but Lily, so she got you another gift. Oh, you got to adjust the seats? It's too forward?

Yeah, I'll help.

You're a big boy now, Henry. Oh, look, this is so fun. It's not lost on me how special this is, that we all contributed to this gift in a special way. I know these times are precious and limited, scarce. Late Grandma introduced these to us. She would always get these off of Facebook Marketplace or something, and the kids would have so much fun. So I think about her I think about my dad, who's also gone. He said he would pipe these vlogs up to heaven. So, Papa, hope you're enjoying seeing your father's namesake have fun on your land. And I hope, uh, Beth's watching too.

You know, we bought him a little tractor when he was—

he was a little too young.

When he turned 2, he was really shy about it.

No, you remember? And then he flipped it.

He flipped it and then he was scared to ride it. He didn't flip it, he went off the side of the sidewalk.

It begins. On this Sunday seed day, we basically cook and clean up. Who's it by?

Loopy Whisk.

And this is the focaccia.

This is the focaccia bread. So I make this bread for the grilled cheese. I make this bread, but obviously I put it in the bread instead of pizza crust. If you want to see me in action making bread.

I'm gonna go get some shots of them riding. Austin, cue up the drone and 360 footage. You gotta learn how to do this. Get in, stop. He can't, Papa. It's so tar hard. Oh, is it? Why are you doing it there? Okay. Oh, he's getting some firewood.

Where did they put this?

Are we gonna give him Lily's present now? Is this car charging? Yeah, might want to get an extra battery for that thing. This is what you can do. Present too, right? Yeah, remember, you shared their birthdays.

Don't exasperate him, okay? Remember when you wanted it to be your birthday when it was their birthdays? I was just joking with you that it's their birthday.

No, I was serious. Remember how they let you open presents?

Can I open it now?

You can open it now. This is from Lily.

He's just all grin. 4-year-old birthdays are a lot of fun, aren't they?

They are.

Whoa! It's a huge present. Can you see that, please?

Wow!

Whoa!

It's a construction train set. You just set it up for an hour after you made it? Yeah. And then you bake it. Okay, you want me to put one of those down?

I guess, or I'll just put them up in the top one too.

So maybe it is y'all's birthday after all. They run by themselves, huh? You wind them up?

They're little feist.

That's cool. Look at that.

They're batteries.

So we're trying to break this tree.

Yeah, so what I did is basically you just go like that along the edge. If you could drag it, that's fine, but you can't pop that open until that's done.

Okay, I'll be able to drag it. Hey, Beck, I think I got it.

Okay, so what we're gonna do is do this like this.

Okay, it's the cookie layer. It's gonna be crazy. How'd you learn how to make this?

I guess And I have a brain.

Should I try this vanilla? Oh yeah, can you guys check the pizza crust?

You guys check the pizza crust, make sure it's not gonna burn.

Wow, I'm gonna kill this pan.

And then now I got to get the— oh, this is easier to get off.

You might want to set it out a little bit too.

Yes, we're gonna have to. Okay, so this is done. I'm gonna put this back in the freezer until my icing is ready.

I'm making Whipped cream icing. The key is to let it air out. We got it on these drying racks off the parchment paper, and then that way it won't be soggy. This is the cake for an ice cream lover. Gonna work on his gift from Gideon. Now Gideon, is it okay if he sees it? He kind of wants to be with me. Okay, you just said you won't know what you're building. Yep, we're building you a chainsaw.

A real one?

Well, no, it's a toy one. It can go in the back of your truck. Now screw that together really hard. Okay, finishing touch, and the boy's got a chainsaw. Good job, my man. Hold it behind your back. I hear him screaming. Maybe it'll cheer him up. Big boy's going to Soccer. It wasn't long ago y'all were always making wooden chainsaws for y'all.

It's a chainsaw.

Oh, thank you. Say thank you. He gets so shy when he gets a present.

Sure, Big Daddy's up there?

No, but he's good.

Okay, birthday wish, go play at Big Daddy's. When it's blinking, it's charging. Okay, okay. You need to wait till it's flashing equals charge, steady equals ready. So you got to wait until that's a steady light. Don't ride it until it's a steady light. That's why we're gonna order you another battery. It's his birthday, Big Daddy.

Oh, I know, you got me some cars.

Oh look, she's watching the race. Hey, how's it going in here? Looking good. You're starting to make pizza? Yeah, how'd it turn out, Dari?

I think it turned out fantastic.

Wait, that's so glad you were born.

What's your name?

Henry.

Henry.

Love how he says it.

How old are you, Henry?

7.

7?

Why 7? 4. No, 4. You might be 7 after all those birthdays you've shared with your brothers and sisters this year?

He's probably 10.

Well, if he had 1, 2, 3, 4 birthdays, you're 9. What day of the week is it?

7.

What month is it?

7. 7 is good too.

What day do we all go back to work? What's your favorite holiday?

Birthday day.

Birthday day. Who's your favorite person in this house? Gideon.

That's your big brother.

Big Daddy?

Baby Waylon.

Baby Waylon. Okay, Baby Waylon made the top of the list. What about Lily? She greets you every night.

You like Baby Waylon more than me?

That's okay.

I love you.

I love you too.

He made a shoe though.

He's got his chainsaw.

He loves this chainsaw.

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Henry, happy birthday to you.

All right, blow them out.

Oh, you don't get away. Henry, do you know what kind of cake this is? What kind of cake is it?

Ice cream.

Oh, he likes ice cream. Whoa, Becky, look at that! Get a picture of that. It's a hit, Henry. Go ahead and blast your brother.

He's a good little brother. He likes to play and he liked the chainsaw I built You like this when everybody says nice things? He's a good brother because he always likes to play and he never wants to go to bed.

Now this isn't a roast.

And he is very sweet and nice.

You like to read books to him at night when he doesn't want to go to sleep.

Yeah.

He's nice. He's fun to be around and And he's a good little brother. Why do you think you're his favorite? I don't know, 'cause I'm nice to him? And he's a good little brother. He's very sweet to everybody in the family and he's a good little brother to have around.

Today was our 4th anniversary of you coming into the world. And I'm so thankful that we have you. You're very sweet and loving and you tell me that you love me and you give me hugs and kisses and you cuddle and—

He potty trained this year.

You—

And I get that set.

Yes, you did get that set. You love cars and tractors and excavators and bulldozers and chainsaws and you love your gator. But you know what? You potty trained this year.

I poop in the potty.

And you poop in the potty, yeah. And you say really funny things.

Mama, mama.

Yes?

Can you poop outside?

This isn't a rose.

We're telling on you, buddy.

You're telling on him.

Before outside. Oh no, they're not there. This is what I'm saying, he says funny things. Do you tell on your brothers and sister too?

You tell the truth, don't you?

Although the other day he did something and I said, did you, did you do this? And he says, nope, Gideon did. He really— he was the one who did it. He did confess later. It was eating him up.

You potty trained this year, and you also slept through the night this year. It's very special. I've noticed this year too, you are all very compliant. You want to do what we want. You want to please others. And I always say that you are our second firstborn child because you act very much like a firstborn. And we're blessed because we're Tired parents in our mid-40s, we needed you.

Do you want to cut the table leg? Okay, cut the table leg.

Do it. No, I like it.

Henry, you're the last grandchild. Yeah, and you have so much, so much help. I think it's made you grow fast. In many ways, you're very smart. You see so much, and you're growing taller and bigger. You're fun to be around because we don't know what you're gonna say.

Mommy, come with me.

We have the box. I'm gonna show you how to do the box.

The Jeep? You want to show Big Daddy? Okay, we'll go. We'll go after. I'll come.

On a 1 to 10, how great was your birthday?

10.

A 10? All right. Do you want to tell the people happy day?

Yeah.

Can you say happy day?

Happy day!

Happy day!