Turner turns 4, now 'almost 5'

For 11 days, he waited patiently to celebrate his birthday.
Then, on Aug. 30, Turner Thompson partied like a gold-medal gymnast to ring in his fourth birthday. For the second straight year, Turner celebrated his birthday with friends and family at the Gage Center in Blue Springs, Mo.
“I’m 4 now,” Turner said after his party. “I’m almost 5.”
To kick off the party, Turner and his group of friends hit the gymnastics play area. They walked across the balance beam, bounced on trampolines, rode a three-person swing and jumped around on the “floor exercise” area.
Even the adults, including Deeon, Bill and Jimmy, took part in some of the goofiness. They all three tried vaulting into a foam ball bit, but Deeon struggled to clear the vault. Jimmy successfully completed a flip over the vault into the foam pit. Then Bill tried to display his pommel horse skills, which were minimal at best, but he was the best of the bunch.

For the kids, most of the fun was spent in the front section of the play area. There they enjoyed a two-story slide, rope swing and a giant foam pit. When asked about his day, Turner exclaimed, “That was fun. I went down the slide fast.”
After all the horsing around was done, the birthday party headed upstairs to its own room. There everyone ate pizza and cupcakes. Turner opened his numerous gifts; shredding the paper on each one, looking at the gift and then moving to the next one. His gifts included a Nerf arrow gun, toy golf clubs, puzzles and lots of coloring books.
One week later, the Thompson family headed east a few hours for a weekend in St. Louis.