He's FIVE!!!!!

Awww.  I love this little guy.  In my head he's still my baby, even though he's growing up so fast.  His birthday fell on a Sunday, so no Chuck-E-Cheeses this year.  (I can't say I'm broken up about that...I hate that place with my whole soul but the kids think it's a paradise.)  However we did have a family birthday party with him at my parents house....and I FORGOT my camera, so these pictures were taken with a phone, which is why they are not top quality.  It's the best I could do, and at least we still have a record of it.  It still makes me sooo mad though. 

My parents went all out with the decorations.

Life sized superhero cutouts

Cake

Presents

Family eating dinner

Candle lighting

'Slimer' from 'Ghostbusters'. He requested this gift specifically from his aunt Denise, who had to special order it for him.

He put it on immediately

His other special request was for a piñata.  He got this Spiderman one.

His cousin Issac (Jared's son) giving it a try

Getting blindfolded

After a while we gave up on the blindfolds and just let him go nuts

My sister was on "Jacob duty" while I took pictures.  He still managed to escape from her and try and get into the neighbors pond next door, but luckily he was captured in time.  I'm telling you that kid is work.

Crystal getting blindfolded

Appropriately, Seth was the one who cracked it open. Of course he got more turns than everyone else too.

Jackpot!!

Jake wasn't interested at all until he saw the candy. Then he re-appeared on the scene.

Seth is my ray of sunshine in my house.  He is by far my happiest and most enthusiastic child.  He always smiles, and his preschool teachers love him, because he is always so happy and always runs in the room with a huge smile on his face. His speech therapist asked me if it's even possible to not laugh every day because of the witty and funny things he says. I told her it's not.  It's literally hard for him not to smile most of the time, even when he's mad.  It doesn't hurt that he has huge dimples that go with his baby blue eyes either, it makes it hard to stay mad at him.  He is my most creative, and imaginative child too. He laughs at everything.  He has the best sense of humor, and the things he says are always hilarious.  He is a breath of fresh air because his happiness is incredibly contagious.
He gave a talk in primary about 3 weeks ago, and he did a great job.  He had the whole classes attention, and was extremely animated when he gave it. He loves being in the spotlight and has no problem with being the center of attention.  He is also very social, he talks to everyone he can, asks them questions, and tells them things about his life that he thinks are interesting. He is still into superheroes and video games.  We usually go easy on games because we don't want him to get addicted to them, and waste hours of his day, but when he does play we monitor him. We bought him a Nintendo Wii for his birthday which he still thanks us for every day. He says it's the best present he's ever had. Again, we figure as long as we control how much he plays, and for how long, it will be okay.  We also picked the Wii because even though it may not be as cool as the Xbox or playstation, it's more of a family oriented device and has activities that will help him get off the couch, and move instead of just sit there. 
I love my Sethie.  He brings me back to my own childhood when I watch him play.  Everything he does is a game, everything he looks at can be created into an imaginary situation and a great story. He makes up all kinds of stories and tells them to us.
He just finished "Itty bitty baseball" as far as his summer activities go.  Since soccer is next we didn't sign him up because he is fairly passionate about how much he dislikes soccer.  It's just not his game, which is fine. Strangely, he really likes basketball. So we're signing him up for that fairly soon. 
His other new thing is Ghostbusters.  He absolutely loves the movie, and that's why he requested a "slimer' shirt for his birthday.  He likes the movie, but especially loves the cartoons.  We were able to find some old ones that they used to show in the 80's and 90's on TV and they make his day. 
His other new grownup thing is that he prefers to take showers instead of baths now.  This is a big deal for him because he usually hates water on his face. Now however, he finds excuses to get himself dirty during the day (as if he needed any) so that he "has" to take a shower as soon as possible.

He's been making some great speech improvements too. He's been in speech therapy all last year because he has trouble with his "G" "S" "K" and "D" sounds.  He does what's called "fronting" where he uses the front of his mouth to make sounds that he should be doing with the back of his throat. When he started he was only accurate with those sounds about 30 percent of the time, and now he's jumped up to around 70 percent with most of them.  Most people don't know this, but he inherited his speech issue from my mom.  When my mom was small she had the exact same pronunciation issues, (albeit in Spanish,) and her older brothers used to tease her relentlessly because of it.  She grew out of it over time, but it took her a couple of years longer because in Bolivia they didn't have speech therapy options, especially back then.  She has been a great supporter of him because she still remembers what it was like, and the frustration that she felt.  It's because of his speech, and his summer birthday that we're thinking of waiting a year before putting him in kindergarten.  He technically could go in this fall, but he would be younger than most of his class, and combined with his speech it could possibly make things frustrating for him.  I've been testing him at home though, and he basically meets the criteria for being able to enter as far as his understanding of numbers and the alphabet go, I think he could be okay, at least at first, but my biggest worry is the rate at which he would progress compared to kids who would be a little older than him.  I'm worried about his ability to excel as opposed to just floating by. It's been a battle to figure out what the best option for him would be. I've been doing all kinds of research about it.  I've been praying about it too. It's amazing how many parents are passionate about the subject online, both for and against holding your kid back a year. Scott wants him to work on his speech for another year first, (also I think he wants him to have a higher physical capacity for sports) he also thinks that having Seth being one of the older boys in his class will improve his ability to focus.  The thing is, Seth doesn't lack confidence at all.  Also having been with him in preschool, he does fine at paying attention to the teacher. As sparatic as his focus may seem, he's just like all the other boys in preschool. I'm pretty sure Seth does fine for a boy, it's just that Scott is used to seeing Crystal's learning style, which is very mature for her age, and he can't help but compare it to Seth's.  Crystal was always ahead of her class though, so much that we've even considered advancing her a grade. Which is a whole other thing I'm debating about as well, but that's another story.   Either way, whether we end up putting him in this year or not, I work with him at home.  I do speech exercises with him every day, especially because it's summer break and he doesn't start up his classes again until September, and also I have him enrolled in an online program, filled with learning activities for kindergartners, and I work with him on that and supervise what he's learning on it every day as well.  He's only been in the online program for a few weeks, but he loves it, and I can tell that he's also learning from it. It's nice too because through the program I can also design my own lessons for him that focus on things that I think he could use more work on. It measures his progress and tells me where he takes the longest to figure things out.  Whether or not we hold him back, I'm going to keep him on it because I'm already seeing an improvement in his spelling and sounding things out.  Sure it's more work for me, but I like having a direct say in what he's learning and I like being able to know where to focus with him in certain areas.  So we work together for an hour every morning, and he loves it.

I don't know what I would do without this perfect 5 year old in my life.  I know I can always turn to him for a good laugh, and any real conversation with him is priceless.  I love the way he views the world.  He is so full of love for each of his family members, always quick to say "I love you" and even more impressive, he's quick to say "I'm sorry," and "Do you forgive me."  He is protective of both his older and younger siblings and will immediately jump to their defense if he thinks they've been treated unfairly.  Even though he has what I call, a "little boy attentions span," he learns quickly from his mistakes, and he is very proactive and is willing to try and solve his own problems without help when he wants something done.  He remembers to pray for each of his family members before bedtime, and when Crystal would talk about "drama" at school, he would mention specifically that she would get along with certain friends, or that she would get picked to be the teachers helper soon, etc.  He's extremely caring and attentive that way.  I think it will make him a good spouse one day.
I'm so glad he had a good birthday.  He deserves it.  He makes our home and our lives complete, he is my oldest son, and he is a great brother for his siblings.

Jake holding onto his big brother

He is the best.