Happy Thanksgiving!

Thankful for another Thanksgiving!  We celebrated our many, many blessings with food and family.

6th Birthday!

My Dearest Cade,

You are 6 years old!  A whole hand plus one!  You had a Lego Ninjago themed birthday this year and to celebrate we went to the Lego Ninjago movie with Grandmother, Grandaddy and Betty, had a family birthday party, and went to a Falcons game.  You have grown a lot over the last few months, in many ways.  Here's your 6 year old stats:

• You weigh 46 lbs. and you are 46 inches tall.  
• You wear size 5/6 in clothes and 13.5 in shoes.
• You remain an amazing eater.  You eat like an adult and have an amazing threshold for spicy foods.  Your favorite foods include fruit, pizza, nachos, chicken wings, cheese, and apple sauce.  Getting you to drink requires a bit of coaxing.
• Your favorite things to do include building with Legos (you BLOW ME AWAY with this - you build very complicated sets almost entirely by yourself), draw, play with cute/cuddly stuffed animals, make/create things (you like to create things out of cardboard - dog houses, etc. and yesterday you made me a necklace using one of the rocks from your rock collection), and play on your tablet.  Your favorite TV show is Wild Kratts.  
• Your personality is quite complex.  Your inner-most soul is so sweet, kind, and thoughtful.  You are the first to jump in and help out if someone around you needs it.  You have a heart for others.  About 3 weeks before Christmas you began making a gift for Santa.  It was a box of hand-made gifts you collected - full of pictures, letters, cards.  It was the sweetest thing ever.  You are very much a leader.  You strive to be in charge of whatever circle you find yourself in - both at home and amongst peers at school.  You are intuitive and sensitive.  You are loud and rambunctious.  You are adventurous, fearless, and curious.  You are smart...so very, very smart. You are rough and silly and confident.  At times, usually at home with us, your really push boundaries.  At other times, usually when you are out and about and have been given some independence you walk such a tight line that I think I might just burst with pride.
• You approach the world with curiosity...you truly love to learn and you are seriously like a walking encyclopedia; particularly with regard to animals.  
• Your best buddies are Lucas, Brooks, and Nolan and you claim that your favorite thing about school is recess. 
• You waver between best big brother ever and pretty-hard-to-get-along-with big brother.  :)  But Luke looks up to you in a HUGE way.
• You have a bit of a perfectionist side developing.  When completing your homework (which you think is AWESOME...I hope you always will :)) you erase numbers/words that look perfectly fine because they don't look "right" or "good enough" to you.  I'm hoping you outgrow this.
• You love, love, love to help.  You also love to clean the house.  Today you even said, "Can we clean the house today...like the WHOLE house?  I really want to clean the house."  And you really meant it!  You really enjoy helping others and you really enjoy cleaning.  
• I've said it before, but it still rings true...one word to describe you is BIG.  Whatever you are feeling..it's BIG!  When you're happy, it's a BIG happy...when you're sad/mad/frustrated...it's BIG.  It's impossible not to know when Cade is in the room.  :)

Your 6-year-old self is pretty amazing.  I could write for hours and still not capture all I want to say about you at this age.  The most important thing to know about you at 6 is that you are loved and admired in the biggest way.  Sometimes I just stop and think about you - your sweet, thoughtful heart, your angelic little singing voice, all of that potential wrapped up inside of you - and I cry big elephant tears. We are so grateful for you and we can't wait to see what the next year will hold for you!

I Lost My Tooth!

Cade lost his first tooth on Thursday!  Ms. Eiken (who is a legend at PMES for pulling teeth) had the honor of pulling his tooth during his STEM special.  I walked past the lunchroom while he was having lunch and I noticed that he (and the rest of his class) was trying to flag me down.  When I went in to see what was up he super excitedly shouted, "I LOST MY TOOTH!" with a huge grin on his face while waving his little green treasure box back and forth.  :)  It was super sweet!

Cade the Ar-teest

Congratulations to Cade!  This sweet boy won first place in the Reflections contest for both our school and for Gwinnett County.  His artwork has now been entered into the state competition.  We are super proud of you Cade!  This big honor came at the perfect time for him as he has been REALLY into art lately.  He's currently OBSESSED with a website called arthubforkids.com - he asks to go there every single day.  I hope that his love for art continues to grow.  Way to go Cade!

Fall Fun

I say it every year, and I'll probably say it every year until the end of time....WE LOVE FALL! Although it's only beginning to FEEL like FALL, we've been in the spirit for a while now.  

Happy Halloween

We had a great Halloween in the 'hood again this year!  The boys dressed up as matching ninjas and had a blast trick-or-treating around the neighborhood.  Like last year, they had just as much fun giving out candy when we got home as they did getting it (even yelling from the porch "Get your candy here!").

4 Years Old!

My Sweet Lukey Bear,

You are 4 years old...such a big boy!  We could not be more proud of you!  You have a sweet, kind, gentle spirit.  You always include others and freely share with everyone.  You are silly...so, so silly and love to make us laugh.  You are quite shy and do not enjoy being the center of attention (unless it's at home.  Today you put on a dance show for Cade and me - even played your own music on the keyboard and danced on the side - told us where to sit and made us watch.  So funny!).

To celebrate you we had a birthday breakfast, went to Build-A-Bear, went on a GJ and Randall Pop funded shopping spree at Toys-R-Us, had a family birthday party, and went to an Atlanta Braves game (which ended with your first concert - MC Hammer...LOL).  Happy Birthday Little Man!

Here's a little more about you at 4 years old:

• Not quite sure about weight and height - I'll check back in after your check-up.
• You wear size 4T clothes and size 11 1/2 in shoes.  
• You are a very picky eater and don't seem to need as much sleep as I think you should need. You wake up before everyone else and getting you to nap is a struggle.  You go to bed around 7:30/7:45.  Every night after I put you in the bed you call me back to your room and ask me for two things:  1)  a sip of water   2)  to sing you a song 
• Your favorite foods include:  milk, waffles, pancakes, cuties, applesauce pouches, pasta, garlic bread, fish. Anything sweet.
• You are still quite imaginative and enjoy playing independently - usually super heroes, complete with sound effects, but you ask mommy to play with you all day long.  You also love to play ocean animals.  You can entertain yourself with just about anything!  You also really like to play board games and you love to play your Leappad on Sundays on the way to church.  
• You still really love your giraffe blankie and sleep with him every night.  
• You scream and cry when you don't get your way and you don't really like being told what to do - seems like you want to do things your way.  :)  We're working on it!
• You are still crazy smart and learn things so incredibly quickly.  You started reading early level books and learned how to count to 100 by ones and tens a few months ago.  A couple weeks ago you said, "Mommy, today is the tenth day of school...that means we have 90 more days until the 100th day of school."  I remain in awe of your amazing brain!
• You have to be one of the most loved little boys on the "pwanet"!  We love you Lukey Bear!