Today is Jackson's 5th birthday. The only thing is that he has no idea. We opted to celebrate early because I wasn't sure I wouldn't be admitted to the hospital by now. So we opted to tell him his birthday was on Saturday. Now I'm just praying this baby doesn't come today, because try explaining that you are going to share a birthday with your new baby brother when you actually thought your birthday was last Saturday. We could only keep that charade up for so long.

But he had a wonderful day. It worked out perfectly that Greg's brother Jordan and Mom were in town, so our "family" party year seemed a little more fun with some visitors.

We started the morning at Bounce U, an indoor bounce house not far from here. Jackson immediately started down the enormous slide. Again and again and again. If I hadn't pointed out some of the other inflatables, I think he may have stayed there all morning. Bennett was not a fan of the bounce house. The music, fans and size of it all was rather intimidating and he stuck to driving a little car around the arena. But even though it seemed as if $7 was wasted since Bennett was not into jumping, Greg and Jordan the two free "supervising" adults made up for it by going on every inflatable in the place. In fact I'm not sure Jackson was the most disappointed when the workers announced the end of open play.



Then we drove home and hid all of Jackson's presents. He had this idea stuck in his head that we would play "hot/cold" to help him find his presents. I thought it was pretty creative of him. So we obliged, although I found one 3 days later, so I probably should have logged the hiding places.

After lunch and presents we had the cake. This year I opted to buy a cake (chocolate cake from Costco) and just added some oreo truffle basketballs for the top. Although the basketballs were a little "rough" to the culinary critic, to the 5 year-old discerning eye, they were perfect. My only pitfall was that the cake was HUGE. We gave half of it away and we are still eating it a week later).


Jackson is just a wonderful little person. He has turned into such a smart helpful kind young man. I often catch him doing little surprises for me and helping his brother all the time. He is learning like a sponge and can pretty much read most words. I just finished reading his first chapter book out loud to him (My Father's Dragon) and he just ate it up. He loves to do art activities, play basketball, catch, and play all kinds of games. He is really into pirates, Batman, Scooby Doo, and BYU basketball (was there ever any doubt?) I just love the boy he is and can't wait to see him grow up!


Happy Birthday to a great kid!