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Coffee break

Sweet Owen boy had his third birthday.  He was looking forward to it so much, and kept telling me, "It's hard to wait a long time for my birthday." He had a delightful birthday, filled with all of his favorite things: pancakes, church, lunch with the Zoschkes, cupcakes, presents, frozen yogurt, and a ride on the Bob the Builder at the mall.  As you can tell, he enjoys food just as much as I do.  That's how we celebrate.

Owen is such dear little boy.  Here are some of my favorite things about him right now.

Following his map, with his telescope on his eyepatch

He loves, loves, loves his little brother.  If they are up at night in their room, they are inevitably talking and laughing ecstatically.  Wherever one of those boys is, you can find the other one next to him.  Sure, they fight over toys and have their little squabbles, but those boys are buddies.  Now, when we take walks, Owen holds onto the stroller and Caelum points to different things and says, "Dah?" Then Owen  tells him about whatever he's pointing to: "That's a tree, Baby Caelum." Sometimes I'll hear Owen rambling on and on in the playroom and when I ask him what he's saying, he says, "Oh, I'm just talking to Caelum, Mom." I love seeing their relationship grow.

Owen, as you know, loves to sing and play musical instruments.  We gave him an acoustic guitar and he brings out that, a toy electric guitar, a keyboard, a djembe, and a microphone so that we can sing songs together. He rocks out pretty hard.  Here's a really cute video of him singing a Matt Pond PA song, on his birthday morning. I wish that I could have found a video of the actual song, so that you can see how accurate he sings it.

He loves to "play church" and read the Bible and pray.  He opens the Bible and says, "This is the word of the Lord." But what comes out, bless his heart, is, "This is the word of the Yord." One day he'll learn to pronounce those Ls, but for now it's dang cute. When we do family worship, Owen usually prays first, completely silently, but more recently his prayers have included thanks to God for cupcakes, the body of Christ, and his acoustic guitar.

Owen has gotten a lot friendlier.  He used to be really shy at parks, but now he asks on the way to the park, "Will other kids be there to play with?" He immediately starts talking to any kids there, saying, "Hi friend. There's my baby brother over there.  Be careful by him. Come see my fire truck." Yesterday we were outside at the ranch and one of the guys who takes care of the grounds who we've never actually spoken with before was parking on the other side of the bushes we were near.  Owen yelled, "Hi!" and the man answered, "Hola." Owen kept talking to him, told him about his baby brother, and then came back to me, saying, "That guy drives the machines. He's awesome."

Finding money in his pocket

Each weekday while Caelum is napping, Owen and I play school. We go over a letter or number, and then do a little craft. He really enjoys it, which is nice, and his new favorite thing to do is paint.  Yesterday he said his favorite part of the day was school, which says a lot since his best buddy Arden came over as well.  That's the other thing he does that just kills me.  Zach will come home and Owen put his little hand on Zach's arm and says, "How's your week going, Dad?" Or he'll say, "Are you excited for the weekend?" He always asks me, "What was your favorite part of today?" I love his sweet nature. 

He is really sensitive too.  We had a few families over for Christmas and when it was time for dessert, Owen grabbed the plate of Christmas tree cookies and went to serve them to everyone.  He tripped and the whole plate of cookies fell onto the floor.  He looked up, his eyes got really wide, and then he ran and buried his face in my legs.  He was about to cry and then we diverted him...with cleaning up the cookies.

It's amazing that he's three.  He is such a good companion to me and really keeps me entertained.  I love his special ways and how he is so smart and funny.  I'm praying that God calls him as to be his child and that these early hints of a love for Jesus will grow into devotion and recognition of his great need of the only savior.  God has truly "hemmed in" Owen so far, and I pray he does so for eternity.