Happy 5th Birthday Jack!

I keep telling myself that there will come a day when I am all caught up. But the reality is, this is the season of life that we are in. Between being sick (or dealing with allergies) and the general busy-ness of the end of the year, I feel perpetually behind. The good news is that I am not stressed that I didn't sit down and blog sooner, I'm just thankful that I have a few quiet moments right now.

Five. That seems like such a big number. Jack will start kindergarten next year and we will enter into yet another season of life. I'm not ready. But ready or not, it is coming.

Jack continues to love people and never meets a stranger. For his birthday party, we actually had to limit his guest list, and even with some friends unable to attend, we had a packed house.

This little guy of ours, the one who first made us parents, continues to teach us so much about life and how to parent. I know we make mistakes with him but there is a lot that I think we are managing to get right.

Jack is enamored with numbers right now. He has been counting to 100+ for over a year now and in the last few months figured out adding and subtracting with his fingers. He especially loves to tell us what different numbers add up to.

Letters also fascinate him and he knows what sounds go with what letters. I need to be more intentional with his learning since he is expressing interest, but I know he will learn to read with or without me.

Jack learned to ride his bike this summer and has enjoyed perfecting new skills including hopping curbs and riding down hills that are scary to him. We are proud of him for teaching himself and also trying new things. Sometimes he falls down, but he gets back up again, and that is really all that matters.

We have tried several sports over the past year – gymnastics, T-Ball, and soccer. I don't know that Jack will be our athletic kid, but he definitely enjoys being active. He was more inclined to be distracted during group sports, but loves to ride his bike, run on the trails and hike with us. This summer he also discovered a love for snorkeling and paddling our kayak with us.

We are so blessed to have this spunky, loving child in our lives. We can't wait to continue to grow up with him.

My next blog post will recap Jack's birthday party. He had a bit of a prolonged week/weekend celebration. We celebrated with donuts at preschool on Thursday, at El Metate on Friday (his actual birthday), with friends at his birthday party on Saturday, and with some of our family on Sunday. It was a crazy week for us, but Jack loved every moment!!!

Birthday Dinner: Public House

I am woefully behind on my blogging. So many happenings in the last two months of the year!

So my 35th birthday was last month. On the day of, a good friend asked if I was doing anything special. The truth of the matter is that a Wednesday birthday (at any age) is tough. But especially when you are a grown-up with a spouse who is at the very end of a very long (two-year) project and you have littles at home. I'm not complaining, but that is how the dice fell this year.

I literally spent my birthday "dinner" in the drive through at Starbucks while my boys napped in the back before church.

My mom is the master at assigning different dates for different events (her birthday and anniversary are on the same day, so she has always chosen a separate day to celebrate), so this year we did the same... It just took over a month to find a date we had a sitter available AND that Daniel didn't have to work.

So a week ago (or two, I don't even know the days any more), Daniel's mom was in town for Isaac's baby dedication and we took the opportunity to sneak off for a dinner date.

During Thanksgiving, Daniel had met his sisters for a Collective Soul concert at Track 29 and before the concert they ate at Public House. It was so good, he knew he had to take me back.

Since it was a Saturday, we called ahead to make a reservation. When we arrived we were surprised that the place wasn't overly crowded. They started to seat us at a tiny table right by the door, but we requested a booth further in the restaurant (thankfully they granted our request).

We enjoyed a solid two hours of talking, just the two of us. And I don't think we talked about kids (if we did, it was minimal). It was such a nice, and much needed, change of pace.

The food was glorious. My youngest sister-in-law said it best when she said the Peanut Butter Pie was like a high five in your mouth. All of the food was truly a high five your mouth, in the best possible way.

We started our meal with an appetizer of fried pickles and pimento cheese with crostini. Daniel would not typically eat (much less try pimento cheese), but he really liked it. The crostini was charred perfectly and had an amazing smoky flavor.

For our main dishes, Daniel chose the salmon with rice pilaf while I had the fried chicken with mac-n-cheese. All of it was amazing. The salmon had a smoky flavor that I don't think I could copy at home and the fried chicken is probably the best that I have had.

To top the meal off we chose the Peanut Butter Pie with coffee for me (decaf). A serious high five in the mouth! The food was so good and the restaurant didn't feel pretentious, a plus in our books. We would give it 5/5 stars.

 

Happy 4th Birthday Jack!

We had several celebrations with Jack over the course of the last week. We had a friend party on Saturday, followed by a family dinner to celebrate at El Metate (the Mexican place where you wear a blue hat), and then a preschool party on Jack's actual birthday.

We are about partied out around here.

I have so much to say about my sweet boy, though not all of the blogs in the world would adequately describe him or what he means to our family. Hopefully these few words will suffice.

At four, Jack is incredibly curious. As with most parents of 3 and 4 year olds, we continue to be in a never-ending why phase. As a parent I have a love-hate relationship with these questions. I love that he is learning and wants so badly to know things, but sometimes the questions never seem to cease. These questions stretch me to help him understand the world around us and in turn I learn more as well.

Right now Jack havs a deep love for people and helping others. He has never met a stranger. His standard pick-up line at the park is "Hi, I'm Jack. I'm three [now four]. Do you want to play with me?" I hope he is always this outgoing and that his sweet spirit never gets crushed. His confidence amazes me. He doesn't care how old or young you are, he wants to be your friend. It makes him sad when older kids are not interested in playing with him. In turn that makes me sad, but I try to let him experience these harder moments without interference, along with the sweet moments.

 

At preschool and church, Jack wants to hold the door for every single person coming in and out. We are typically running late anyways, so I really have to check my patience at the door. Instead of being exasperated that we are behind (mostly my fault anyways), I allow him to hold doors and talk to everyone. I hope he always desires to put others first.

We spend a decent amount of time in the car and I try to use those moments to teach him things like our address and how to count to 100 and how to do basic addition and subtraction using his fingers. He is a little sponge and soaks up all of these lessons. He is starting to consistently recognize a handful of letters and can spell his name. One of his favorite games is to play teacher and I know that his time spent in preschool aids in his love for all things school and learning related. He has quite a few books memorized (his favorite right now is Madeline) and I can't wait until he learns to actually read and all of the doors that reading will open for him.

This year Jack requested his very own kayak so that he could take his friends paddling with him. This was a big change from last year when all he wanted was an electric toothbrush! Since it was November, we weren't ready to commit to a kayak, but we are still mulling it over – maybe Christmas little buddy! His back up request was an Optimus Prime robot (which his Great Grandmother lovingly bought for him!). I think he had a good birthday.

Most days the days are long, but the years really are short. I'm still kind of in shock that we have a four-year-old. Jack loves being four, but doesn't get why he doesn't get to move up to the 4s class at preschool and church. I am working to convince him that he is one of the first to turn four and he gets the privilege of teaching the other kids how to get ready to be four. I am really looking forward to the coming year and all that it holds for Jack.

Jack's 3rd Birthday

I asked Jack what he wanted to do today for his birthday and he said "go to the Y, go to church and go to a big restaurant for a burrito." We managed to do 2 out of 3 of his requests, plus a couple of other activities.

We started the day out with pancakes, per his request. After watching TV, Jack was a trooper and let me take him to get his haircut. He was getting a bit shaggy and was on board with getting to sit in the fire truck at Pigtails and Crewcuts.

After the haircut, we headed to the Y for Zumbini class. We were a little late, but were surprised by the kids singing Happy Birthday to Jack. After Zumbini, Jack went to childcare to play while I did Boot Camp. Afterwards we enjoyed eating lunch with friends on the playground.

Here is a quick example of a difference between boys and girls: The girls were collecting ladybugs to show their moms. Jack (the only boy) brought me a ladybug and proudly said, "Look, I squished it!" The girls were not impressed by the squishing.

After the Y we picked up a corn dogs and a slush at Sonic. 

That night, per Jack's request, we went to our local Mexican restaurant, El Metate, for burritos. Jack was very specific in that he wanted to wear the blue hat (sombrero) after dinner.

I don't know that he was prepared for the whip cream in his face, but he was a trooper. Especially since he got to wear his special hat. Daniel and I enjoyed his sopapilla while he ate all of the whip cream. 

 

After dinner, Daniel took him to play at the playground across from our house. It was a special treat to get to play in the dark. 

I would say Jack had a successful day turning three. We plan to celebrate with some of our family this weekend.