little bit.

This kid. The one with quite a few nicknames. The one who has managed to get in more than the older two combined. The one who likes to climb all the things. The one with eyes that we can't tell what color they'll be. (But seriously, anyone? Brown? Green? Definitely not blue anymore.) The one who loves his brothers fiercely. The one who cries crocodile tears when he doesn't get to go outside. The one who's stolen all of our hearts. And the one who can give us a look that cracks us up instantly...

Graham. A loud little thing that walks and climbs. That yells his own words at us. And also sweetly says some real words to us. Currently cutting six upper teeth all at once (to add to the only two he currently has). And possibly cutting his one year molars at the same time. (Um... that's fun.)

Such an amazing little thing wrapped up in this tiny package. And as challenging as he can be, we wouldn't have it any other way.

cayden: last day of kindergarten.

Again, about three weeks ago... but who's keeping track?

::laughs, sobs... how does the time get away so easily?::

Anyway, Cayden had an awesome first year of school. Awesome. We felt like he went in super-prepared this fall, but we're amazed at the progress he made over this short time span. It seemed like he would never start reading, but y'all, the dude can read. In our school system, they want kindergarteners to read at a level D upon graduation. Cayden's reading at a level K. K! According to some charts, that's entry-level second grade. And yes I'm bragging; I'm proud!

His handwriting has also gotten so much better. He still writes a couple of his numbers backwards (mainly the number 2 because I think he gets it confused with 5 just a bit), but otherwise he's writing whole sentences. Creatively. And illustrating those sentences too. It's all sorts of cool.

Jeremy and I can no longer spell things around him either. Which is great if we need to communicate something with Cayden that we don't want Sawyer to know about. It's not so great if we're trying to communicate privately and he can sound out what we've spelt. Ah, good times!

He's a bit of a social butterfly... which, on occasion, got him into a little bit of trouble this year. Never enough trouble to warrant a meeting with the teacher. We'll see how this goes as he gets older. It's tough being a five year old stuck in a classroom setting for most of the day you know? He's also a little bit of a clown... if you couldn't tell from the photos above.

Overall, he's an amazing kid. Super smart. Super cute. Super sensitive. And super awesome.

sawyer: last day of 3k.

Running a couple of weeks behind on getting things shared because summer. Anyway, Sawyer wrapped up 3k a couple of weeks ago. This was his first year at "school" and he loved every single second of it. He loved the school. He loved his teacher. He loved his friends. I think he really just loved having something all his own. As a middle child it's hard to get that, you know? But school for Sawyer? Was just that. His own.

I feel like he's grown leaps since he started last fall. His vocabulary most certainly has – we'll often get the response, "That's just... impossible!" from Sawyer. And it makes us laugh because he says it the best way a three year old can. He knows all of his letters (with the exception of getting "M" and "W" mixed up every so often – who can blame him?). He can write most of his letters too. Ask him to write his name and he'll sit down, grab a pencil, put his tongue in the corner of his mouth and go to town.

Every night that Cayden had homework, Sawyer asked to do his homework too. As in, he asked to do Cayden's homework. Short of sight-words/reading, Sawyer would tell us each letter of the alphabet (in a random order) and let us know what sounds they made. I feel like he's pretty brilliant. I'm also pretty biased.

We've got him signed up for 4k in the fall, moving to a three-day-a-week schedule. I'm already unsure of how to use all the quiet time this fall, but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find something to fill that time. Ahem, the ridiculously curious one year old would be the something.

cayden: six years old.

It's incredibly hard for us to believe that we have a six years old. I know it's cliche to say, but it literally feels like we just brought him home from the hospital. And it's crazy to think about how far we've come in these past six years.

Cayden is an amazing kid. The best big brother any little brothers could ask for. He's caring and compassionate. Crazy and gentle. And just all around awesome. He's also brilliant. He amazes us every day with his knowledge and imagination.

For the past two years he's shared a birthday party with Sawyer. This year he asked for one of his very own and we were happy to oblige. We knew that keeping it low-key was the way to go and with a requested Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle party, it was pretty easy to put together. And I totally made that masterpiece of a cake. Not too shabby right? At least I got the green color right? Haha!

Happy sixth year kiddo! Thank you for making us parents. And super proud parents at that.

frios.

Let's ease back into this blogging thing, yes? Whew. Unintentional break taken. And now maybe it's time for it to be over. School's wrapping up and I'm sure things are about to get interesting. It'll be my first summer as a stay-at-home-mom... And while I'm used to having Sawyer and Graham home during the day, I'm not used to Cayden being home all day. I'm hoping we'll be able to find our groove pretty quickly. I'm hoping it'll involve a lot of pool time with some trips to the local zoo and kids museum thrown in.

Oh, and it'll definitely include many, many trips to our local popsicle place, Frios. We hit it up for the first time about a month or so ago and have been two times since. And there are plans to hit it up again on Wednesday for a certain someone's sixth birthday. Sixth!