Fun Summer

Don't have time to write much, but here are some pictures of how our Summer is going.

  Lots of trips to the beach, the river, and the splash parks to beat the heat.  

My dear friend Martha moved away so we tried to see as much of each other as possible the last few weeks.  Christian is obsessed with holding her littlest boy.  That's all he wanted to do whenever she was over.  I loved seeing how tender he was with him.  He loved to stroke his chest and face.  He looked so big in comparison!

Not that he didn't love playing with her older boy too.  Those two are such cuties together!

Whenever you ask Christian, "What do you want to do?" he will answer, "Play-doh!"  So that's something we've done A LOT this Summer.

Benjamin has been such a good big brother to Christian lately.  I love it.  He is constantly playing with Christian and he does it in such a very sweet way.  I hope they always stay good buddies.

Benjamin's favorite toys are ones he can build with.  His magnet tiles, legos, and even his jenga blocks and dominoes all become various structures.  His passion is contagious too.  When he's playing with them, everyone else wants to as well.  He's usually pretty good about sharing...usually.

The libraries have been awesome this Summer with all their special programs.  We've been to plays, circus performances, petting zoos, magic shows, science exhibits, etc. etc.  All free and all at various libraries in the area.  So fun.  The kids loved this guy - he balanced on a chair on top of bottles on top of a wobbly table, he juggled, and rode a unicycle so high he hit his head on the ceiling.  They were entranced for the whole 45 minutes. So fun.  Although Benjamin loved the magic show the best because he was selected out of the audience to help.  That made his day.

Happy Birthday Benjamin!

Today was Benjamin's 6th birthday!  My little boy is six!  He hates when I call him my "little" boy!  But he still is to me.  All day I just kept thinking back to what I was doing 6 years ago today - all the excitement and drama that accompanies the birth of your first child.  All the uncertainty but also all the amazing new feelings you never knew you could experience - like unbelievable, indescribable exhaustion, just to name one. :)  I just remember holding that little boy in my arms and thinking he was the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen.  I couldn't get over how amazing he was and how perfect.  He's still amazing.  He is such a blessed boy.  Such a perfect, healthy, strong athletic boy.  So smart, inquisitive, and quick witted.  So kind, empathetic, and generous.  He's just simply amazing.


I think we had a fun birthday today.  We started with cake and presents.  He mostly got science stuff because that's what he asked for and wanted most.

Then we had a really fun party with friends at an indoor play place.  It's a store that sells backyard play structures, but they have a huge showroom in which they allow you to play all you want and rent adjoining party rooms.  So the kids ate and played for hours and had a great time.

Then we borrowed a friend's wii, invited some friends to come home with us, and played Mario Cart and other Wii games.  It's been a tradition for 3 years now that we borrow a wii on Benjamin's birthday and he gets to play as much as he wants.  I love it so much more than owning one myself and fighting that battle every day.  When they got bored, we pulled out all the legos he'd gotten as presents and spent over 2 hours building with legos.  I don't know who had more fun, me or Benjamin.  Christian loved it too.  That kid is a huge lego fan and luckily for me, he doesn't put them in his mouth, so he can play with us all he wants.  No pictures of that, sadly.

After all the friends went home, I expected Benjamin to want to go out to eat, but he said he'd rather stay home and have a BBQ, so that's what we did.  Give that kid hot dogs and baked beans and he's happy.  After dinner we played piano together (he started lessons three weeks ago and has been really loving it) and then he said he was exhausted and wanted to go to bed.  I am glad he had a great day.  He deserved it.  He's been a really fun kid this past year.  We went through some very hard times with him in the past.  When he was 2 and 3 and even 4, he had anger management issues so severe that I consulted with professionals and considered counseling and therapy, but he's matured a lot and it's been really fun to see all that he's learning and all that he's improved upon.  I look forward to another great year with him, especially now that I'll be homeschooling, I'll get to see more of him and I'm excited for that.  I love you Benjamin.  Have a wonderful year being 6.