Owen's a handfull...

of fingers now! He turned 5 yesterday, despite my threats to him of keeping him four for another year until I thought he was really old enough to be five. So now when I saw that he is a handful, then I can mean it both in age and in temperament! :-)It seems really hard to believe that he is already five. When I think back to when Teagan was five, he seems so different from she was... more "four-ish". She always seemed so much older than she really was so when she turned five I thought, "is that really all she is?" And Garrett at turning five seemed like he was right on track. But my O-Bear, well he seems like it would be okay if he were only turning four. My other two were already reading on a first grade level by this time, and were acting more...well, rational. And it really isn't his fault that he isn't reading on that level yet, life has been really busy and I have been a bit of a slacker when it came to teaching him. He can sound out words and read simple books, but he isn't done with his learning yet. And his emotions don't seem to have tempered out quite yet like the other two had by this age - his temper is on a short fuse, his voice is often raised in anger and frustration, and he has this odd sense of deserving everything. Like whatever he wants should be his because he deserves it. I guess maybe that comes from being the youngest for so long? His emotions seem to run deeper and more intensely in both directions - his love is stronger and his anger is louder than anyone else I know.But having said all that, he is amazingly grown up as well. He is Emmett's best buddy and will look out for him at all costs. He is my only child who has asked if he could marry me when daddy was done with me. He tells me, almost on a daily basis, that he is never going to get married, but is instead going to stay at home and be with me forever. He still comes and crawls into bed four out of five early mornings just to cuddle for the last hour or two of sleeping. He loves his daddy ferociously and just being with him can cheer his mood up.

And one of my favorite attributes that I just learned about him this week: he LOVES checklists. Just like me! We started a weekly chore checklist for each of the kids and he is being the best about completing everything in all the categories so that he can check them all off! I love it! I finally get to raise a fellow checklist lover :-)

He is such a fun loving little man! He loves to make people happy. Whether it is by doing something funny, giving a hug, drawing a picture, or sharing a snack. He has developed this habit of whenever he is playing with friends/family and there starts being arguments or hurt feelings, he will come to the kitchen and find some sort of snacks and will take them to everyone to help smooth the emotions and get everyone calmed down again. (I hope this isn't showing traits of eating himself out of a funk or using comfort foods!) I thought that was a smart way of dealing with conflict resolution - they can't argue if there is food in their mouths! And he loves to give people things he think will make them happy. Shopping with him is often an adventure because I constantly have to make him put things back that he will add to the cart because "so-and-so will really like it if I give this to them."

Owen was only 2 months old when we moved to Utah so he has been here almost his whole life - yikes! That sounds like such a long time. He hasn't had the chance my other two had to grow up with my sister's kids nearby, yet he still knows each of them from pictures and talks about them and what they like. I've tried to make sure that they are still an active part of his life, even from two thousand miles away. My computer has locked the majority of my pictures away from me, otherwise I would put some pictures of baby-O up as a walk down his memory lane. Maybe later.

For his birthday, as is our tradition, I let him pick out what we ate all day long, let him say all the prayers, get the mail, be my special helper, and lead us in our morning devotional. I was sort of worried about what he was going to choose for us to eat, but luckily I was able to "direct" him in the right direction so we were spared eating some of his crazy food cravings. At first he said he wanted to eat 15 cakes, 6 pies, and 29 donuts for breakfast, but we ended up eating cheese eggs and French toast with orange juice because "otherwise we all might get tummy aches." Then for lunch we had meatballs in bbq sauce made with grape jelly, homemade mashed potatoes, manderine oranges, and lime-aid mixed in the blender (it makes it frothy and he loves it that way). His first choice was meat, cheese, and jelly sandwiches, but Mommy wasn't sure if we had enough meat for everyone to have a sandwich, so he had to chose something else! And for dinner we had sausage and pancakes on a stick, homemade applesauce, and chocolate milk. They are like corn dogs, only yummy. So our food choices were pretty yummy and the kids all loved his choices!

We did his cake and presents at lunch when we had Daddy with us for half an hour. He had chosen out the cake and frosting, but later learned that he didn't particularly like cherry flavored frosting, so the cake was a bomb. But the lime sherbet he chose was a hit, so it wasn't a complete loss!

He got from us 2 color changing Hot Wheels cars which Garrett immediately took so he could "show him how they worked." (good one, Garrett, real smooth!) I believe Garrett still has one of the cars up in his bed still! He also got a Diego movie (which was a giant hit!), a little set of Pixos (something he had been asking for for almost two years, so I went against my better judgement and got it for him. He wanted either them or Bendaroos, so I chose the lesser of two lame evils!), and a set of 4 shooter marbles that have real bugs frozen inside of them. From his Granny he got a pair of puppy dog footed jammies - two of his favorite things! He was so thrilled with everything and told me over and over that this was the best day of his entire life! "Really."

This is a picture of him with a doggie he made out of Pixos.

He loved being in charge of all the decisions today. He loved waking up to his room being decorated with yellow streamers and balloons. He loved the phone calls he got from family members wanting to sing to him. He just loved the entire day. I don't remember the number of times he crawled up in my lap to get a quick hug and to tell me that today was a great day because he was the special birthday boy. He is such a sweetie!! He has so much energy and so many emotions trapped inside his little body, but with it comes such a great desire to do what is right and such a deep capacity for love.

He might be my one child who will give me the most grey hairs, but his loving and that million dollar smile of his make it all worth it! He is such a loving angel boy that when the mischief sneaks in it makes me smile, and when the anger in him spews forth, it is quickly remedied and forgiven. He often attacks me with a barrage of kisses followed by a pummelling of "pushing the kisses in so they can't fall off"...he loves just as hard as his little five year old heart lets him and I can't imagine my life with out him and the drama that surrounds him!