Charlie's birthday party!

Every year we have a little swim party at our neighborhood pool to celebrate Charlie's July birthday!  Yesterday, the weather was beautiful with low humidity- a wonderful day to celebrate Charliebear!

This year's theme was soccer!

I was only going to do cupcakes and at the last minute Charlie cried and said, "all I ever wanted was a 'weal' cake!"  So Mommy ran to Winn Dixie and grabbed and premade cake and begged them to find a soccer cake topper.  Done and done.  :)

We served Zaxbys chicken strips, chips, fruit, carrots, salad and rolls.

We love you Charliebear!  Happy birthday!

Now he is six

When I was one,
I had just begun.
When I was two,
I was nearly new.
When I was three,
I was hardly me.
When I was four,
I was not much more.
When I was five,
I was just alive.
But now I am six,
I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six
now and forever.

A.A. Milne

Well, my baby, my snugglebear, has turned six. 

Hooray!

Oh Charliebear I just cannot take this!  You have been nothing but a delight to us your whole little life!

You are just the sweetest little boy.  You are gentle, kind and super cuddly.  You love stuffed animals and have a million sheep "teddies" as you call them.  When I put you in bed with all your sheep you say, "I have a feast of sheep!"  :)  You love to be held.  Tonight I watched you sit in Julia's lap for a while.  Yesterday you sat in Marky's lap to watch a show.  You especially love cuddling with Mommy and will always stop to run and give me a hug if I say, "Charlie- let's have a quick snuggle!"

We all adore your baby voice.  You are the only one of our children that has hung on to the baby voice so long.  It's the sweetest "wittle" voice.  :)  I know you will have to learn to say your R's soon, but oh, how we've enjoyed your baby voice all these years.   I said to you, "Please don't turn six," and you said, "It's okay Mommy, I will still be cwose to five.  I'm still your wittle boy."

Don't let the cuddly baby-voice fool you though- you are a tough cookie.  You are all boy and LOVE sports.  You love to play basketball, football and soccer and are competitive.  You tackle Marky and Daddy all the time.  The other day you reached out of your car seat and punched Marky on the shoulder.  He said, "What was that?!"  You said, "That....was a warning!"  You LOVE superheroes, Lego and your knights and castle.  You love to chase around with nerf guns and nerf swords saying, "I will destwoy you!" while smiling your squinty-eyed smile. 

You are very clever and learn things easily.  You have a great sense of direction and can always tell me where to turn in the car.  You are reading and have fallen in love with the Magic Tree House books.  You generally pay attention when I am reading aloud and can answer my questions about the story.  You are awesome at chess and won your games at the camp tournament this week.  The coach told us other children didn't want to play you saying, "he's small, but he's really good."  :)    Tucker has trained you up to love and know all the things he's passionate about- geography, space, flags, and chess.

You are an easy-going guy and would prefer to rest than run around all day.  You and Julia are my go-with-the-flow, take-it-easy children.  

Please know how much we love you sweet boy.  You are the baby grandchild of both mine and Daddy's families so you are in a special spot!   We have all loved your young years.  I know we will enjoy watching you grow and pray that you put God first in all you do.  Love, Mommy and Daddy, Marc, Julia, and Tucker.

Today we opened your family presents!

BB got you all kinds of Auburn gear- you loved it!

Zaza and Big Grandpa sent your birthday money and called to sing Happy Birthday to you!

And you immediately tried on your new Auburn clothes!  :)

We love you sweet boy!  Happy 6th birthday!

This and that

We've been busy around here, but we had big news today- Tucker is finally out of his boot and can walk, run and swim again!  He hasn't been able to do anything like that for six weeks, which feels like a million when you are eight.  Poor thing hasn't been able to swim all summer!  Now he's back in action!

His current x-ray is on the left- old x-ray on the right shows break in big toe-

He is SO HAPPY!!!  We are ALL so happy!  Two shoes today for basketball camp!

He and Charlie have been attending a little 1/2 day basketball camp with their buddies this week.  Then we pick them up, feed them lunch, and let them go to an afternoon chess camp.  They have had the best time.  Charlie's favorite is basketball and Tucker's is chess.  :)

My boys are in green.  They don't mind matching.

Last night Marc took Tucker and Julia to cook at the homeless shelter.  They love going- they even get to go with Daddy to Sam's to get all the food and see how it's all done.   It's part of a volunteer program through Marc's office.

Speaking of Marc's office, we just learned that they have a suite at the baseball stadium.  I don't know how we missed this important information. 

The boys made their own signs.  Tucker's says "Go 'bear' ons!"- Go Barons!

One of the mascots came in and played with the children!

We let Julia invite her friends and their families-

At then end they had a "Diamond Dig" where women dug in the dirt for a $4,000 diamond!   A lady near 3rd base found it! 

Our church potluck was cancelled this month so I told anyone who wanted to they could come to our home that night.  We had a nice group and delicious supper!

I host the monthly book group for the women's group I am in and we had our meeting Wednesday night.  We surprised our friend by celebrating her birthday!

And a few more pictures of Tucker's altar server training.  He has been getting trained and we told him when his boot came off he could give it a try.  He's super excited!

By the way, last Saturday we took a huge load of books and stuff to charity and the used book store.  The lady at the bookstore said, "shake out these books to ensure they are empty."  We thought that was odd, but when we did it two pictures came out!  We don't even remember these pictures- I'm so glad we didn't lose them forever!  They are from our first year of marriage!  Young love- I was married at 22 in the middle of law school!  I think the top picture is from the "Barrister's Ball".  :)