Creegan Turns Five

Birthday celebrations started nice and early for Creegan yesterday. In some ways, it was a necessity. Melanie, Eddie, and Peter had to rush off to school, and that meant either we had to postpone birthday celebrations until the late afternoon or Creegan and I would be doing some celebrating on our own. We didn’t want anyone to miss out on anything major, and so we started the day with Creegan opening gifts. Truth be told, it was Creegan’s idea. He had told us the day before that he wanted to open his presents first thing in the morning. Melanie and I were totally fine with that. Fortunately for Creegan, Melanie and I had decided to let him stay home from preschool so he could spend the day enjoying his gifts. Which he did, immensely. But I’ll say more about that in the context of sharing photos, which will dominate the rest of this post. Enjoy!

One of Creegan's requested gifts was a wristwatch.

Creegan nearly filled this thick drawing pad with illustrations throughout the day.  He did most of it while listening to his new mp3 player, which you can just make out to the left of the drawing pad, standing upright and still in its plastic case.  The most played song of the day was Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe," which came pre-loaded on the mp3 player.  Did I mention this mp3 player has a speaker and doesn't require headphones?  Despite his young age, Creegan requested the mp3 player for his birthday.  Makes me kinda proud.

A plethora of plush puppies produced peals of pleasure from Creegan.

Melanie made her famous cornbread for a delicious birthday breakfast.

Creegan was quite enamored of his puppy collection.  He took many photographs of them himself, including this one.

Uncle Tom crocheted this Pikachu for Creegan.  What an awesome and sweet gift!

Creegan chose "Jason's Belly" for his birthday dinner.  He has called Jason's Deli "Jason's Belly" since we lived in Florida.  It's so cute, most of us call it that now.

This is the first time I've made a birthday cake for one of my kids.  Creegan requested chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles and chocolate chips.  I just sprinkled the chocolate chips on top, rather than placing them nicely, which I guess doesn't look so fancy.  But I'm proud of myself nonetheless.

Disclaimer: Creegan is faking it.  He'd already blown out his candles, but we filmed it rather than snapping a photo.  Afterward, we had him pose like this so we could take a photo.  Don't tell.

Creegan was very proud of himself for being able to pour his own milk.  He just started doing it in the morning, informing me, "I can pour my own milk now because I'm five.  I couldn't do that when I was four."  It must be pretty cool to wake up with special new abilities.

Not sure what Creegan had in mind with this photo, but he posed and insisted we take it.  So here you go.

Happy birthday, Creegan!  I love you tooooooooooooooo much!