Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Birthday Boy!

Nineteen years ago today this cute little guy made me a mother...

And it's basically been one big nonstop adventure since!


In honor of his nineteenth birthday, here are nineteen random facts that you may or may not already know about him (and a few that he may not want you to know):

1.  He is a bacon aficionado and only likes his bacon cooked the one "right way", which is dipped in a mixture of flour and sugar and slow cooked over the griddle until just barely crisp.   He will take over the job from anyone he deems as doing it incorrectly.

2.  He is the most injured of all our children.  He's had stitches, staples, and two broken bones (a finger and a toe).   With three broken bones in my life (collar bone, leg, and toe), I am the only one who is anywhere close to him on the injury list.

3. Also, between his three surgeries, bout with leukemia, five months of hospitalization, allergies to numerous medications, and natural teasing personality he's caused more tears than the rest of the kids combined....times 100.

4.  He wore only jeans and t-shirts (no collars) through early elementary school, then switched over to only t-shirts and athletic shorts which he wore most of the way through high school. When he went to college he suddenly decided it was time to develop a real sense of fashion and now wears only name brand shirts and slacks.

5.  He is the pickiest eater in our family.  He would much prefer a sandwich and plain old spaghetti than many of the crazy new recipes I try.

6. He is a cheese connoisseur and if a dish has cheese in it he probably likes it.  When he is home, you can usually find at least 5-6 different kinds of cheese in our fridge at any given time.  His favorite is smoked gouda.

7.  He has a gift with words.  He has always been good at getting his point across either on paper or orally and much to Cami's jealousy, he can whip out excellent academic essays with little effort.

8. He's not much of a sweets guy, but if  you want to get on his good side, a batch of peanut butter bars could never hurt your cause.

9.  He recently updated his FB status to say that he was "In a Relationship"!  :)

10. He is pretty even-keeled.

11.  Most of the way through high school he considered matching socks to be an unpleasant and unnecessary task.

12. Speaking of which, organization in any manner is not his strong suit.

13. He is very sweet with young children and loves nothing more than to make them smile.

14.  His soft spot for young children aside, that affection does not mean that he shows any mercy to them when playing board games.

15.  For as much as he shunned the spotlight through most of his childhood, he was a surprisingly good sport about the extreme spotlight he had on him when he was sick.  He now is much more moderate when it comes to attention--he still doesn't seek it, but he also doesn't shun it anymore either.

16.  Deep down inside he is a book worm.  When he was in elementary school he'd read 1-2 chapter books a day and we'd have set rules so he wouldn't read all day and all night and get nothing else done.

17.  Speaking of books, his favorite authors are Orson Scott Card and Nicholas Sparks.  For anyone unfamiliar with those authors, the first is the science fiction author who wrote Enders' Game, the latter is an author who specializes in tragic love stories that get made into movies.  His titles include, "The Notebook," "Safe Haven,"  and "A Walk to Remember".

18. He can play the clarinet and piano, but most likely wouldn't ever admit to it.

19. He has a love-hate relationship with this blog.  On the one hand, he hates it because it sometimes shines the spotlight on him, on the other hand, he's told me  that he has many friends (mostly of the female persuasion) that read it regularly...a fact which I don't think bothers him greatly.  :)

 
We love Spencer and look forward to him coming home for the summer next week.  I'm already stocking up on cheese and bacon.  :)

Happy birthday, Spence!  We love you!



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On a completely different note...check out this picture of our neighborhood creek this afternoon:
It normally has about 6-inches of water in it and you would not even be able to see the water from this distance and angle on a normal day.

Luckily it's supposed to be beautiful for the rest of the week....just in time for my mom and dad to arrive into town tomorrow for my twin nieces' baptisms this weekend!

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1 comment:

The McArthur Family said...

Happy Birthday, Spencer! I adore that picture of all of your kids together with Spencer in the middle. What an awesome bunch!

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