Seven Years Old

Excited to get a new scooter
The panda cake
How are there so many candles on that cake?
For dinner he requested pancakes, eggs, bacon and sausage- he knows how to eat!

Happy Birthday Caleb! For the past week I have been calling him a 7 year old and he would emphatically say, "No, I am still 6." Now he is more than happy to be 7 and told me it might take awhile for me to get used to that number. :)

He brought a birthday treat to school today. I made 5 blue cupcakes topped with a toy bug and 5 pink cupcakes topped with a toy ring. (Nate helped me realize I don't need to make an extravagant birthday cake and an extravagant school birthday treat for the kids!) Caleb requested breakfast for dinner which always makes me happy too. I was a little surprised when he picked the panda cake. I thought he would go for something like a pirate ship or dinosaur cake. However, he enjoyed seeing pandas at the Atlanta zoo and he likes Kung Fu Panda (even though he hasn't seen the movie!). I must note that I cringe whenever the kids pick a cake that requires alot of red or black frosting- those colors are so hard to make! Caleb received a new scooter, flashlight and work gloves from us. He also received some toy army men and a Veggie Tales devotional book. I record their gifts here so I have gift ideas when our other children turn 7!

Tonight I considered making a comment to Caleb like, "Seven years ago I labored for 18 hours and was so excited to finally meet you." But, I was afraid that would bring lots of questions! Exactly when should kids start learning about how babies enter the world??

We thank God for the blessing of Caleb. He is a smart, athletic, compassionate and kind-hearted boy. It is a joy to watch him master new skills. I feel like we're embarking on a new life stage- the grade school years. We've changed his bedtime to 8 pm instead of 7:30 pm when the other kids go to bed. I kept insisting he needed to be in bed early because he gets up at 6:30 am, but he would just lie in bed awake until 8:30 every night. So now he gets to read with us on the couch before bed without any sibling interruptions- kind of nice. We also finally bunked the boys' beds. (Actually I wasn't so nervous about Caleb on the top bunk, I was nervous about Isaac crawling on the top bunk and falling out!) I'm sure we'll be making other changes as we realize Caleb is no longer a "little boy" but a regular "boy" now- nothing little about him! We pray for many more birthday celebrations with Caleb!