Logan Dennis, 5 and counting

In his primary class Logan is literally a head (and sometimes shoulders) shorter than the girls in his class who were born at the beginning of the year. For whatever reason, he's just our little shorty right now. We're pretty sure he won't always be that way, but just because he's not very tall now doesn't mean that there's not a whole lot of energy, personality, vocabulary, and cuteness packed into him!
Logan turned 5 a few weeks ago and we had a very fun day celebrating him. We got up and gave him his new Star Wars t-shirt so he could wear it to his party. He was so excited that it was hard to tell him he couldn't put it on until after I'd given him a bath!
Grandma and Grandpa Lay picked up Logan and Luke and took them to McDonald's for lunch. They played and played on the playground there and Logan got a new Transformer and some matching cards from them. Here's Logan holding up "Sideswipe" in front of Grandpa Lay's face. Good thing we can tell it's Grandpa by the reflection in the mirror. :o)

I kept cleaning and cooking while the boys were gone and then as soon as Samantha got home from school we waited for the guests to arrive for Logan's party! Living close to cousins is like a party all the time, but it also makes for good party guests. Caleb, Jacob, Maryann, Isaac, Olivia, and Hyrum came to have a blast at Logan's Stars Wars party.

Here's our awesome little dude making a very cool Star Wars pose. Notice the sneer curling on his lips. He must have The Force.

The kids played a game in two teams where they had to stick stickers on planets and spaceships worth different point amounts. It was the boys (The Empire) against the girls and Luke (The Rebellion).

And here's the winning Empire team!

On to the presents! Logan obviously enjoyed this part a lot.

He loves the new Thomas the Train puzzle which Luke insisted for days afterward was his.

This is a great plush Mater that came with a soft brown blanket on the inside. Logan loves it and even started insisting that the Winnie-the-Pooh blanket he's loved since he was tiny was "old" and he only wanted the Mater blanket now. My little boy is growing up! Sniff.

Love this grin. We found a Bumblebee Transformer costume for cheap and Logan was thrilled to get to use it for Halloween.

The party guests minus Rebecca and Hyrum, and also Luke who had been in this shot until about 3 seconds before I took the picture. He wouldn't hold still. Sigh...

I racked my brain the night before the party trying to come up with how to do a Star Wars cake. I searched for pictures of R2D2 cakes online, made a weak attempt at drawing him, checked blogs of people I know who have done Star Wars parties and I couldn't come up with anything.
The next morning Logan said he wanted R2D2 and "that gold guy" on his cake. I started wishing I had an applique like I did for Samantha's cake. Finally, it dawned on me that I could just print a picture off the net. Success! I even found a bag of candy stars in my cupboard left over from our gingerbread house last Christmas. I picked out the white, yellow and blue ones and because I was of course running late during the party again, my mom and sister-in-law Celeste helped me throw the cake together. It looked FABULOUS and Logan was very happy with it. Why do we mothers freak out about things like this? I could have killed myself off trying to make something extra cute to impress everyone but the one who mattered most: the Birthday Boy!!!

See how happy he is? (Not to mention adorable?)

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ICE CREAM and cake!

We took the whole family to Applebee's for dinner that night. We were put in a booth, so there was no room for a high chair because the aisle was so narrow. We put Rebecca in a booster seat and she wiggled and wriggled and managed to dump her entire bowl of macaroni on the floor. Next time I will wait until a table is available!!! Aside from that little mishap, Logan loved the waiters coming to sing to him and getting his very own special dessert. (Notice Rebecca's funny face in the background and the fact that she's NOT in her booster seat.)

I realized that I hadn't gotten a picture of Logan in front of the game he was so excited about, so when we got home and he'd already put on his pajamas I made him put his shirt back on and pose in front of it. Yes, there's a glare and no, I'm not a good photographer. Someday I'll upgrade my camera, but since the subject matter is so darling I'm good for now.

My brothers used to get me to make this face every time my parents would try to take a photo of me. Logan does it well!

This is just us playing around that night. It's a horrible shot looking straight up my nose, but I love the fun, crazy, giggly feel the picture has.

We gave Logan a few more gifts before he went to bed. He'd been asking for a toy called "Tractor Tippin'" from the Cars movie. He asked everyone he saw that day if they present they got him was "Tractor Tippin' Fun" and so we had to get him on video when he opened it. He loves to talk and you'll notice I have a hard time getting him to stop. Again the lighting is poor, but it was still worth taking because he was so funny on camera.

He crawled into bed that night and said, "That was a REALLY great day!!!" and Ross and I were once again grateful to have been blessed with our funny little talkative short guy. Emergency c-sections can be worth the end result.