Captain Owen just turned five-Pirate Party

What can I say? This kid, who drives me insane with his endless questions,  random statements and self-propelling energy is the light of my life. I love his eyes, his smile, his snorty nose, his giggle, his serious look, his mad face, his squishy tummy, his monotone voice, his skinny butt and everything else that makes him Owen.
This year Daddy had to be out of town on his birthday and O was so good about it. As long as the presents still arrived at the proper time, he was good! ;)  For his birthday lunch, he requested steak and for his cake, he picked a fantastic cookies-and-cream cake from Publix supermarket. All day long I'd tell him "Happy Birthday!" and he would say it back to me like it was a Christmas greeting or something.

My favorite thing about Owen is his quirky personality. He is Captain Randomn. "Mom, if Zombies ate brains, would they have to go to the bathroom?", "Mom, what color are brains?", "Mom, do nerves make people's brains think?" (Can you tell the boy is into brains?) He tends to be really fascinated with the gorey and gruesome...Halloween was right up his alley! He wanted to be something "very freaky" for Halloween, so for one of his costumes he was a skeleton man...his choice.

Owen is very time conscious. He can be as patient as ever, as long as you give him a time frame, and luckily he can't read a clock yet (except those cursed digitals!) so I can tell him something will take me about five minutes, and five minutes later, when he comes back to ask how much longer I'll be, I can say four minutes and that works for him! Awful I know...but sometimes he comes back every 30 seconds, and I still have to change the time down, so it all works out in the end!

Owen's favorite thing to do is play the playstation/wii. He has specified times to play, and honestly, without these luxuries, I don't know how I'd even disipline the child! One threat to take away his wii time, and he'll jump up to do anything. O also loves his turtle, Logan's Starwars guys, legos, and take home readers. (Logan brought these little mini books home from first grade and Owen loves to read them!)

I love this boy. He is great at apologizing when he does something wrong (lots of practice I guess!), he takes incredible care of his baby sister, he is the most generous child I know, and he really tries hard to do things that aren't easy.  He finds pride in doing hard things. It makes me very happy!

Here are a few pictures from his special day! We had a pirate party for him when Dan got home, and that was a lot of fun too! Enjoy!

Owen's birthday morning picture. He's still a little puffy under the eyes, but happy to be up, and about to open his presents!

A birthday Morning photoshoot...just a little one. It was HIS birthday after all, and the last thing he wanted to do was have the camera shoved in his face all day! Tradition is tradition however, so we grabbed a few quick shots!

"You've got to pucker up your lips...like deese!"

Owen got this volcano set for his birthday...oh yeah, he is also obsessed with lava, I never mentioned that...anyway, it was pretty cool. He got to pour the mold himself and the kit had lava tablets that were dyed red. They didn't work as well as I had hoped, but we picked up some vinegar and baking soda and plan on having a much more eventful production today!  Oh, and Owen has named his volcanoe, "Vonnie. Vonnie the Volcanoe." Hee hee hee.

Birthday shopping...Ellie was so tired!

Speaking of Ellie...I got a fun, new, fuzzy pillow for photo shoots and got to test it out on her. It is so soft!

Okay, on to the pirate party! When we first started planning Owen's party he begged and begged for a zombie party. I told him that zombies were very cool, but they might scare his party guests too much and we should just save them for Halloween. I tried to pursuade him to have a monster party instead, and that was the plan, until Dan brought home a Pirates of the Carabean video game and Owen was hooked. So...after many different plans, we settled on the pirate party and I have to say, it was an absolute blast to plan! We made a treasure map that took us through all the games, ending at a deserted island with mini buried treasure chests. Owen got to have his taste of the morbid with his decorations, but it wasn't quite as scary as his zombie idea. I'll be honest, skulls and cross bones have never been my favorite, but they are kinda growing on me! :)

Found this poor fellow (Whom Owen has aptly named, Skelly) at Michaels. I love their holiday clearance prices! Owen has played with him non-stop since I bought him. I don't know what to think. Luckily, he falls under the category of, "halloween decoration" and will soon set sail for the attic for a year. I hung him above the table for the party.

No party is complete without pirate cupcakes! Chocolate was Owen's choice! Dan pointed out that I should have made the flags rectangles instead of triangles. Apparentely I'm a little behind on my "pirate A, B, C's".

This sign was made for "pin-the-sword on the cross-bones".

The desert island. The bucked was full of wheat and the treasure boxes were buried there. It was messy, but worth it!

Ellie walking the plank.

Ship-sail pinata. The kids got to stab it and the balloons and candy flew out. I didn't know how this one would work, but it was a lot of fun!

"Crafty Island"

 

Lunch!

Presents! Owen really loved all his gifts! 

The perfect "Owen Jacket" from Maclane!

Owen takes his parties very seriously! Dan and I were exhausted when it was through, but it was worth it!