Happy Seventh Birthday, Spencer!

Spencer turned a whopping seven years old on Wednesday.  Some moms go on and on about how they can't believe their 'baby' is 'X' years old.  Well, I'm not one of those moms.  I can totally believe Spencer is seven years old.

NOT that that is a bad thing.  I'm just sayin', he's a very typical seven year old boy.  Take, for example, a list of the things he currently likes:

• Bodily humor
• Video games
• More video games
• Board games
• Running around like a crazy lunatic
• Picking on his little brothers
• Talking.  Talking.  Talking.  Talking.  Enough with the constant chatter, Spencer, sheesh!
• Groin injury humor
• Playing outside
• Leaving a trail of winter and school gear on the floor from the front door and all around the living room when he gets home from school.
• Whining about having to clean up said trail every afternoon.  (As if it's always a surprise!)
• Being as emotional as a hormonal 13 year old girl sometimes and over the silliest things.  (Trust me, this is actually normal.  I've asked around.)
• Spending time with his Dad.
• Talking some more
• Reading
• Not caring about whether or not he has hat hair (which he does all the time now that it's so dang cold)
• Not writing
• Playing with his friends
• Trying to come up with excuses to not have to go to bed
• Specifically excluding his younger brother from his bedtime prayers in order to get a reaction out of him.  (It works.)

See?  Seven year old boy.  And I love him.

As mentioned in a previous post, despite my brush with death, not making a birthday cake for Spencer was not an option.  So this is what I came up with.

Not so bad, right?  Okay, that candy cane in the middle is supposed to be a 7, but I could never get it to bend just right.  I kept warming up the candy canes in the microwave, and no matter what I did they would start melting into goo at a certain spot.  This was the best I came up with.  (Spencer liked it.)

Why yes, those are candy cane Hershey Kisses.  Spencer was especially excited about those.

Because I knew he would freak out about this gift, I let him open Super Mario Galaxy 2 (a Wii game) after he finished his homework.  (Plus, I knew he would be very upset to open it after dinner and only have a little time to play it before bed.)  (See?  I can be a nice mom!)

I wish I had gotten his reaction on video.  He literally jumped up and down and cheered.  So did Joshie.

Here's the birthday boy with his cake.  He wasn't really interested so much in the cake as in the presents just to the side.  (Surprise surprise...)

Maybe that's why I could only get those weird deer-in-headlight smiles from him...

Here's our traditional video of the birthday song.  (I especially like the missing teeth grin.  Perhaps that's why he missed that last candle.)

You can hear Cole kinda hollering in the background.  That's because he really wanted that cake.  We were mean and wouldn't let him just go at it.

Spencer was quite excited about the remote control helicopter Grandpa ElRay and Grandma Susie gave him.  (And what little boy wouldn't?!)

He also really liked Connect Four, which Cole and Josh gave to him.  (I have now played this game approximately 387 times since Wednesday.)

He was not so excited about the jammies I had wrapped up and given to him.  (He really needed some new ones!)  His face screwed up and he said in a tear-full, melodramatic voice "But these aren't a toy!!!!"  He was very much offended.  It was awesome.  I plan on giving him jammies every year now.

Finally, Cole got some cake.  Which he barely put in his mouth, but which he did manage to get all over the kitchen. 

Happy birthday, Spencer!  You're the cutest, smartest, best seven year old I know and I love you!