Our George is five years old!  He's been excited for his birthday for months now, and he's so glad he can say he's five instead of four and three-quarters!  He woke up before dawn on Friday morning, eager to open presents.  We only had the gifts from us to open that morning, and he opened the rest from family after dinner and cake that evening.  He was thrilled with everything he got!  The gifts seemed to all revolve around football, Legos,  and superheroes, so he was over the moon.  Here are some pics of George on his birthday.

I love this one because you can tell he's smiling even though his mouth is covered up :)

 My parents got him two sets of little plastic sports players with the fitting names of "Football Guys" and "Baseball Guys."  Each set comes with a felt playing field, which my parents glued onto a board that fits perfectly in our train table... genius!

 My sister has given George a costume for the past three birthdays... this year it was the red Power Ranger.

Opening his first set of Legos from Nana and Pa!  They were a big hit!

 

Gus wanted to try on the Power Ranger costume... it needed some rolling to make it fit :)

It's me, Gus!

On Saturday, we had George's party at the bowling alley.  The Crists, Emersons, Balluffs, Nichols, and George's school buddy William were all there to bowl and have fun.  It was our first party outside the home, and I think it worked out great!  The kids all had fun, they were entertained with food and games, and we didn't have to clean our house!

James and George thought it was pretty funny to use the fan to blow on their bellies.

The video games were a very close second to the bowling!

All the kids signed a souvenir bowling pin.  I was so impressed with how well they all wrote their names!

George is such a wild, smart, outgoing, friendly, rambunctious kid and he makes us proud to be his parents every single day.

•  There are times when George wants so much to be a big kid, but he still loves to hug us and tell us how much he loves us ("Mommy, I love you all the way to heaven") and he still loves to have his back rubbed as he falls asleep. 
• He adores his pre-k teacher, Ms. Ima, who says he's making great progress (especially in the temperament department) and he came home with a drawing on Friday of two stick figures with eyes and a smile and two arms and two legs and it made me cry I was so proud - he's never ever come close to drawing anything resembling anything before!! 
• He told us one night at dinner, "I think I should probably invite the girl I'm going to marry to my birthday party."  I said, "Oh really?  Who's that?"  "Julia," he said, "she's a really nice girl, Mommy." 
• Sean and George watched the first Star Wars a couple weeks ago, and tonight I told him we could watch the next one.  I told him, "Anakin is older in this one, he's not a little boy anymore."  George said to me, "I know, mommy.  Even when I was a little baby I knew that."

We love our George more than we can ever say and we're so grateful that he's ours.  Happy birthday, George!!