Happy Belated Sweet Birthday Boy

My boy turned four yesterday.  

I heard a saying-

"the days are long, but the years are short"

My, how true that is.  I don't know where the last four years went.

Happy Birthday to my sweet boy. The one who will always be my baby, my only boy.

Jude- this is who you are at four years old:

A talker- when you get started, man can you talk. And talk, and talk and talk.  Questions follow questions followed by deep four year old thoughts, followed by funny little four year old jokes. 

A snorer- see previous post about you sneaking into bed with us almost every night. I can hear that woobie (blankie) with my super sonic Mommy hearing, being dragged along the carpet seconds before the door is pushed open.  You promptly crawl into bed with us, arrange yourself diagonally and the snoring begins.  But oh do I love waking up to that sweet dimple, even if my back is twisted in every direction because I was relegated to two inches of mattress space to make room for you.  You still love that woobie. And I do too.

A whiner- oh you can whine better than any other kid I know. It's really quite incredible. I know whining is caused by a need for attention, but it's hard sometimes with three other kids! I hope you can understand that one day and appreciate the joy that having a big family brings and not just the crap.  I know I do, although it is very challenging sometimes!

A baby brother- despite the sibling rivalry, you really do get along with your sisters very well. Emily is sometimes a mother figure (occassionally surprising us all by getting you ready for bed), Kaylee is your pal, and I think right now you are closest to Presley. It seems every time we go in a certain women's clothing store, I lose the two of you in either a rack of clothes, or find you playing on the floor like little puppies.

For your fourth birthday, we went strawberry picking at Atkinson Farms.  I tried to score some photo ops, but you weren't really that interested until the nice farmer came out with a big watermelon for you to pose with :-)

Then she let you play on the tractor and four wheeler and you were in heaven!

The birthday celebration will be held next weekend-  a joint birthday party honoring you and your friend JackJack, who was born one day before you.  We had our yearly photo shoot in Kemah this year.

We went to Kemah about a month prior to this shoot and here are a few more pictures of you I just adore (it's a little eery how realistic this face painting job looked!).

And last but not least, some picture of you from our recent family shoot with the brilliant Michele Anderson.

Mommy loves you SO much. Happy, happy birthday!!!