Foto (Photo) Friday is a show and tell of pics from the past week. I am late in posting this but wanted to dedicate this to the week of celebrating S’s birthday.
So much has happened with S in the past year:
- S loves his catechism classes and is constantly asking questions when he leaves class wanting to know more about what he has learned.
- He is now in 2nd grade and loving it. His teacher is so nice and totally gets S’s personality. She has told me they have special signals to let S know when he needs to pay attention or something else so all the other children won’t know and he is not singled out. She is constantly sending home little notes or sending me emails letting me know how great S is in class and how she enjoys him. Don’t get me wrong if she has a problem or question she will also let me know. He has grown so much in the first half of this year.
- S now only wants to read chapter books. I go to the library and pick out a bunch of different series so he can test them and see what he really likes. He is taking after me and enjoys mysteries the best. He knows he has to read everyday for school so he reads on his bus rid home from school. It is such a good use of time.
- S has grown about 3 inches in the past year. He moved up in clothes size and is now a 7X in pants and a 7X or 8 in shirts. His feet have grown significantly and he actually caught up to the other kids his age and is now a size 2.
- He can now officially swim on his own and does not need a life jacket in a pool. In a pond or lake I still want him to wear a life jacket till he builds up his stamina. He also loves diving. S can do all sorts of dives and does not hesitate to try new jumps. Now that we have a pool I see him greatly improving on both.
- I would say S’s favorite animal in the house is the cat, Dash. Dash always wants to sleep in bed with S. She will go in there to put S to sleep and then comes out. The minute he wakes up in the morning Dash comes running to hang out with him in his bedroom or out on the couch. Dash will sit next to him while he eats at the counter or follow him around. If S is in the playroom you can bet that Dash will be sitting next to him in a special little chair that S sets up for her. It is hilarious.
- We got Dinky over the summer and S has done great with helping to take care of her. He will check and make sure she has water and food most of the time. His job is to let her out in the morning when she finally wakes up. He also does great letting her out and in for potty breaks. S has definitely helped me when it comes to taking care of Dinky on a daily basis.
- S of course loves his sister, P. He is really good with her. They play great together, but also have there fights. He helps her out when she asks. He does not like having to share with her all the time or give in to her, but usually will.
- S wanted Minecraft to be the theme of his birthday. I talked it over with him and we decided on making Alex and the Zombie for his cakes. He loves marble cake but I know that some don’t like chocolate (his sister) so one cake was marble and the other was white cake. Since I was making Christmas cookies he asked if we could have Minecraft cookies. Sure no problem. He then gave me the different characters he wanted, wait more than one? Yup, so we have a Zombie, Steve, Pig, Chicken, TNT, and Ocelot. The worst part was that I made a dozen cookies and took a dozen cookies back upstairs after the party.
- I don’t know if P really understood that we weren’t singing to her but she definitely got into it and did not take her eyes off the candles.
- This year S kept all of his presents. Since the Perrysburg Breadbasket is no longer happening we didn’t really have a good place to donate gifts that we knew would be kept locally. S did ask about donating gifts this year. We decided to go through all of the toys he had and donated at least twice what he got for his birthday.
- We couldn’t end his party without a family photo.
- S picked to make the Pokémon character, Evvee. I tried to steer him to something else but he was set on it. Of all the Pokémon characters at least this one also looks like a fox. He loves to go to Build A Bear but told me this may be his last year of doing it. I told him it was his choice and we were okay with it either way. While S was looking B found a Buddy the Elf bear in the clearance bin. I love the movie Elf and really wanted the bear. It was only $10 so even though we told P she could not get a stuffed animal we told her she could get Buddy. She was all for it and grinning from ear to ear holding it.
- S asked to go to Dave & Buster’s for his birthday and we told him no because we had plans to take my niece roller skating. Those plans got cancelled so we surprised S and took him to Dave & Buster’s when he got home from school. They had a blast and P is now getting how to play some of the bigger games after watching S play them. They were playing a downhill skiing game and while P has no idea how to play the game she kicked S’s butt.
- They were only too happy to show what they got. P got another Surprise My Little Pony bag and S got 2 SpongeBob cards he won from a token game. He asked if he could play the game more instead of getting a prize with his tickets. Sure just because it is your birthday. While he was only going to have an extra 2 games I think I ended up giving him 5 games. I wanted to try when he was done and ended up winning him his 2nd card.
- This is just one of the great shots I got when I got his 8 year pictures. Since his party was Minecraft and that is all he thinks and talks about we thought it was appropriate that it was in his pictures, too.