Happy Birthday Spanky!!!

Well, it is that time of the year again, birthday season!  Happy birthday Spanky!!  What would I say to you today?  First, we are so proud of you!  We love you!  I cannot believe you are old enough to have returned from your mission, be attending college, working full-time, living on your own, and just plain being a real live grown up!  Really?  Yep, really!

I don't even know what to say.  You are talented, sensitive, bright, fun, obedient, thrifty, organized, hard working, loving spiritual, kind, thoughtful, and a host of other things it would take me all day to write out.

Favorite Spanky stories:

• Rainbows in the backyard (that is all I am going to say).
• Ripping open the toddler mattress (the brand new one we bought on a college student's salary).  I was so angry that I needed a time out.  When I cooled off enough, I asked you why you ripped the new mattress open.  In your sweet, innocent three year old voice, you said, "I just wanted to see what was inside."  That is who you still are.  If I would let you, you would take apart everything I own just to see what was inside and how it works.
• Again when you were three, you came running into the house and asked, "Hey Mom, will Satan ever get a body?"  After I answered the question, you went running out and that was the end of it.
• When you and Slim stuck a hose in the bathroom window of our basement apartment and turned it on so that you could build a swimming pool.  So much water!!
• You would run around the house singing, "Boom, boom ain't it great to be crazy!!"
• Jousting with the walking sticks in the upstairs bedroom with Sport.  You lunged at him and he backed up, standing on the top bunk, into the second story window.  We were all lucky that only one window pane landed on the ground below and not Sport.
• Throwing one wooden toy block over your shoulder, the corner of it hitting the window and breaking into a perfect circle.  Throwing a baseball, hitting the window, making a diamond shape.
• You using the fire extinguisher to put out a paper napkin on fire on the stove top.  Seriously?  You could have smashed it with your hand.  Instead we were cleaning up the powder for months, behind the stove, under the stove top, in the cupboards, it was everywhere for MONTHS!  You just wanted to use the fire extinguisher---just admit it.
• You begging me to let you take the Suburban apart after it died.
• All of the things you took apart and tried to put back together with just a part or two left over.
• Cutting open Sport's stretchy, toy alligator to see what was inside.  He was NOT happy.
• Carving Sport's name into my piano----soooo not cool.  Do you know that he was grounded from his pocket knife for like months, because of that!
• Writing Speedy's name in cursive sharpy marker on the wall in the bathroom, where he could not reach and before he could write in cursive.
• Puking outside the bathroom door, while you were so sick you thought you were in the bathroom.  You missed by the way, and it was gross!
• When you blended up smoothies for the entire family, forgetting to put the lid on the blender.  Smoothies off the ceiling anyone?
• Chocolatey sugar goodness that your were always experimenting with in the kitchen---mmmmm, yummy.  Serious sugar high afterward.
• You always cook dinner for the family. 
• You are the only one who always cleans the kitchen all the way when it is your turn!!  Thank you!!
• You wash and fold laundry--yours and others.
• Thank you for always including the littles in anything you do!  They love you and know you will listen to them and allow them to help.
• You are an amazing bush chopper!!!  Yea for yard work, you are the man! 
• Thank you for fixing the lawn mower!!!  Taking all of those things apart all of this time is going to save you and your wife some serious money some day!!  

I am sorry for quashing your creativity as a child and not allowing you to just follow your hearts desire and take everything apart!  I do love you!!  You are a very brilliant man!!

Thanks for being our boy and allowing us to be your parents!!  It has been a ton of fun and we cannot wait to see what the future brings!!

Love you, Spanky!!  Happy Birthday!

To us, you will always be this boy:

Love Mom