Today my first baby turned 4 years old! I can’t believe how quickly time passes and how much our lives have changed in four years. Four years ago, I had just stopped working at our local newspaper and we’d just moved into our brand-new home in Indiana. Now, we have a 4-year-old AND a 2-year-old, have sold the dream house and are living in Sicily. How ….?

Anyway! We had a nice day for Owen’s birthday, despite having to spend half of it in the car doing house tours.(Side note: we may have found the house. More on that later). After we got home, he spent the afternoon building his Star Wars legos with Daddy and playing play-dough with Fiona. We talked to grandparents, went out to dinner, sang, had cake and read Harry Potter before he informed me, “Mommy, I need to stop now. I’m EXHAUSTED.” Didn’t realize it had somehow gotten to be after 10 p.m., so whoops.

I could not be prouder of my big boy, who is so smart and so goofy and so thoughtful. He thinks deeply about things and asks great questions. He worries about how people are feeling. And he loves to make up songs about whatever we are doing (or just takes existing songs and adds the word “poop” to it. He IS 4, after all). In the past year, he’s really gotten to be a lot more bold where before he was a little shy and nervous. He loves wrestling and “special missions” with Daddy, reading Harry Potter with Mommy, Star Wars, plain hamburgers, strawberries, apples, swimming (but not putting his head under water), Legos, building things and then knocking them down, dressing up in costumes and a bunch more that I’m certain I’m forgetting. I can’t wait to see what he gets up to in the next year.

Just for fun, here’s a look back at Year 3 for Owie-O.