Happy 6th Birthday to Caleb!

On August 30th, Caleb turned 6 years old.  I can't believe my youngest boy is already 6!  On his actual birthday day, my Mom made M&M cookies for him to take and share with his classmates at school, and I got to go eat lunch with him at his school.  I love working part time and for a company that allows me to put family first and take breaks like that when I want to do family things.  We had worried a lot last year about going ahead and sending Caleb onto 1st grade or whether to have him repeat kindergarten, mainly just because he is so young.  The cutoff here is Sept. 1st, so he is only 2 days away from it.  He JUST turned 6 10 days after starting 1st grade, and others in his class may be turning 7 just a week later.  In the end, after much consideration and prayer and talks and emails with his kindergarten teacher, we decided to go ahead and send him on.  Academically he did great in kindergarten, and we felt he would be bored to repeat it.  So, anyway, when I visited him at school for lunch, it was nice to see him interacting with his friends at the lunch table and being outgoing and friendly.  It's nice to see him more comfortable and confident at school.

Then on the evening of his birthday, we let him pick out his favorite restaurant to go to dinner at.  His pick this year was the same as last year - Pizza Hut.  Scott and I think it is really funny that Pizza Hut is his favorite restaurant, because we don't usually go there to eat in, but will often order pizza from there for home.  But anyway, for some reason he loves going and eating there, so we went.  The only problem is that the service for eating in at our Pizza Hut is horrible and takes forever, and with a 1 1/2 year old who is hard to eat out with anyway at this point, that doesn't make for a good combination.  So, I planned ahead this year and called and placed an order for our pizza about 20 minutes ahead of time, then when we arrived to the restaurant it was ready!  It was perfect timing.  Mama and Papa Brisken and Mama Bailey were also able to join us for dinner.  I didn't end up getting any pictures with them though.  :-(

Things were actually a little tense right when we got to the restaurant because right when we pulled in the parking lot, Caleb and Ethan had some sort of disagreement in the back seat of the van which resulted in Ethan elbowing or hitting Caleb in the nose, which made Caleb's nose bleed extremely hard.  Not exactly the greatest start to the birthday celebration.  (Anyone with two boys, may understand this.)  We are trying to teach our boys not to resolve things with hitting or shoving or elbowing when they get angry and mad, but they still mess up sometimes.  :-(  Luckily, after about 10 extra minutes in the parking lot getting Caleb's nose to stop bleeding and Ethan to change his attitude, we were able to go in the restaurant and continue our birthday celebration.  Things just don't always go according to plan, do they?  I guess that's humans for you and being a part of a family!

Now, back to our birthday celebration.  We were able to get a few pics of Caleb in his birthday hat that his teacher made for him at school to wear.  He was also sure to tell our waitress at the restaurant that it was his birthday and he was now 6!

Thankfully, my mother in law, Sharon, got most of the pictures on this night.  (I was a little stressed and overwhelmed with the whole nose-bleeding incident, and didn't even take any at the restaurant.)

Then when we got back to the house after eating, we surprised Caleb with one gift from us.  (The rest were to wait until his birthday party with his friends.)  We had this set up when he walked through the front door.

A Melissa and Doug Art Easel with chalk board on one side, dry erase board on other side, and paper to pull down to draw or paint on, plus all the art supplies.  I found a good deal on this online back in the Spring time, and we had been saving it to give to Caleb at his birthday.  Caleb has often expressed interest in art and drawing and painting, but we hardly ever do it, just because usually something else overtakes our time at the moment to get things out and get started.  Ethan has never been as interested in art or drawing or painting, so often times his interests convince Caleb to do something else instead.  But we thought that maybe with this art easel it would make it easy to take it out when he wants to work on his art.  The only problem is that with Alaina, we can't keep it out all the time.  (She's already gotten into the paint once since we've had it, even with it being stored back in our guest room.)  I was actually a little afraid that Caleb wouldn't like it, because he hadn't been doing art much lately in the months since we had purchased it.  But to our delight, he thought it was really neat and wanted to paint something right away, so we let him!

All in all, it ended up being a fun night celebrating with our family and with our new 6 year old!  While Caleb has his challenges and isn't always an easy child to parent, there are many things I love and admire about him.  Here are a few:
1.  He is very creative and thinks of interesting things to make.
2.  He thinks and feels strongly about things.
3.  He loves his brother, Ethan, who he really considers his best friend, and is sweet and caring (most of the time) to his sister, Alaina.
4.  He is a focused and determined gymnast and soccer player who always tries his best.
5.  He is a good friend and asks his friends what they would like to play first.

I love you, Caleb, and know that God has great things planned for your life!