Birthday boy

an Applegram intro by Landon a few weeks ago

We celebrated Landon's birthday today with an Arctic Animals birthday party (with the highlights of  ice melting/treasure finding, arctic slime, balloon candy popping,  and a present of "Onto the Desert" from Jordan and me.) All day he was so super excited, 'what time is the party again?!?' I sat down with him for a couple of minutes before the party to tell him 7 things that  I love about 7-year-old Landon. And they were something like this -
1. His total excitement for life.
2. Watching the joy he feels so completely when he is happy about something.
3. How he works so hard at things that he feels are important
4. The way he is very conscientious at school in trying to be so respectful
5. His compassion. How he loves to come to the rescue and save the day and help any way he can when he sees someone is having a hard time.
6. I love hearing all of the interesting facts that he loves to share from things he's read or watched, especially about animals.
7. I love what a great leader he is for his siblings. It is a delight to watch them play together in one of the games he's thought of and leads the way on, and I know Ellie and Owen love it too.

Oh, this Landon! Who feels things so intensely - happy and sad, joyful and despairing, filled with gratitude or bursting with frustration…

Tonight he sat on the couch with us, squeezed between Jordan and me - showing us each of his new animal cards and stopping every once in a while to express his gratitude "You guys do so much for me! You work so hard to do these special things for me!…"  Oh, we do so love you
Landon!

(a few fun pics, though I wish I had an even better one to capture the immediate and wonderful and total complete joy that Landon shows when he is playing in the water!)

Landon at the Oregon beach, just before first birthday

Landon and Owen at La Jolla beach