Jack is SEVEN

Jack turned SEVEN today! Last night, he told me that I better give him a HUGE six-year-old hug because it was going to be the last one! (whaaaaaa!!!) Today, he gave me a big hug and a kiss and told me it was my first kiss from a seven-year-old! Jack is kind, easy-going, cheerful, curious, passionate, and extroverted. He flosses, does the hype, and the orange justice dances CONSTANTLY. He is more obsessed with dinosaurs than ever before, if that's even possible! He loves playing soccer at home, at school and on his soccer team. He loves hiking, fishing, swimming, collecting rocks, and building "dinosaur nests" at the park with his neighbor friends. He has the cutest little group of school friends and he loves school. He is so nice to David and Kate and he always lets David play with him and his friends. 

Today he had Bosa donuts for breakfast, Venezia's Pizza for lunch, and Dominos pizza for dinner. He got his birthday bear from Build-a-Bear, and redeemed his birthday freebies and Frost and the Baked Bear. We sure love him and we loved celebrating with him today!

1. What is your favorite color? turquoise 
2. What is your favorite toy? the colossal t-rex
3. What is your favorite thing to eat? pizza (from Venezia's is his very favorite)
4. What is your favorite TV show? Nature shows
5. What is your favorite outfit to wear?  my Mickey Mouse shirt
6. What are your favorite animals? a dolphin
7. Where does Dad work? at a doctor 
8. Where does Mom work? at home
9. What is your favorite book? dino books
10. What is your favorite thing to do outside? play soccer
11. Who is your best friend? I don't know, I have a lot (lol)
12. What do you want to be when you grow up? a paleontologist
13. What's your favorite game to play? Uno
14. What do you like to take to bed with you? my new birthday bear
15. What's your favorite thing to do with Mom? do a date (melt my heart!)
    
16. What's your favorite thing to do with Dad? do a date (lol)
17. What's your favorite thing to do with David? play on the trampoline 
18. What's your favorite thing to do with Kate? play with her
19. What's your favorite treat? cotton candy
20. What is your favorite movie? Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom
21. If you could go anywhere, where would you want to go? Hawaii to see where Jurassic Park got made
22. What makes you happy? dancing 
23. What makes you sad? if I don't get the presents I want
24. What makes you scared? the indoraptor when I imagine it's alive
25. What is your favorite sport? soccer
26. What's your favorite flavor of ice-cream? cotton candy

Things I'm loving

• More fishing at Discovery Park!

• Carl's Damaged Pet Warehouse! Kate and I accidentally discovered this free little place right off of the bike trail and we've been back 4 times in the last week! The owner leaves food out for everyone to feed his goofy farm animals and it is so much fun feeding them!

I sure love these kiddos!

• Bike rides! Kate looooves bike rides and could go forever, which is a first for my kids! When Jack and David were little, I had to bribe them with dumdums if we ever went longer than a mile! 

On Saturday, we biked from our house to the Gilbert Days Parade! It was so fun!

We got a little side tracked a few times with all of the farm animals on the trail!

We were on the same trail as the Gilbert half marathoners - it was fun to cheer them on!

• Jack's Turkey Trot! It turns out I am one of those moms who tears up watching their kid run in a dinky fun run! haha Sometimes I just can't believe I am the mom of a kid old enough to participate in a Turkey Trot and I feel grateful that I've been able to witness him grow from a 6 pound baby to a big Turkey Trot finisher :)

• Operation Christmas Child (and Kate in this picture!!! She looks so big!) Last year we built shoeboxes to donate online, but this year, Jack and David wanted to shop for their child and fill their own shoeboxes. Drop off was last week, and they each marched their shoeboxes to the donation center on their own :)

• New haircuts for my handsome boys! Spencer saves us a ton of money by cutting all of their hair!

• David's preschool! It's on a large property with farm animals and when he showed up early last week for school they let him ride a horse! He was so excited! (They also offered to let Kate ride the horse and she REFUSED!)

• Scooter dates with Spencer!

THE THING I'M NOT LOVING. My angel sleeper is on a sleep strike - in the last couple of weeks she has gone down for her nap about 50 percent of the time and she protests going to bed at night! Whaaaaaa!!!!!

Things I'm Loving

• The way Kate sleeps. (I am a creepy parent that takes more pictures than I can count of my babies sleeping ;) Kate wants the royal tuck in before she goes to bed - an arc of stuffed animals around her head so it's always interesting to see how she ends up falling asleep with them all - this night we could hardly find her ;)

• My cute morning buddies :) (On Monday and Fridays when David doesn't have preschool)

• Kate and her "Baba" - she carried her Kitty backpack around all last weekend :)

• "Hiking" at the Riparian Preserve - we are crossing our fingers that David will love hiking this year because there is no way Spencer can pack him this year!!!

• AZ sunsets!!!

• Field trip chaperoning for Jack! We went to the zoo and had so much fun. (Aside from the fact that the bus took the 202 EAST to the Phoenix Zoo and then took the 202 all the way back on the way back too! We drove 25 minutes in the WRONG direction before looping around and heading to the zoo. No one wants double time on a stinky and hot bus!)

The baby orangutang was my favorite!

Jack and I may have the record for the most time a mother/son duo have ever spent at zoos :) I took him to the Birmingham zoo about 2-3 times a week for about two years when he was a baby! haha

I loved watching him in his element with all of this friends :)

• Biking with Kate! I took her on a ride this Saturday while the boys went fishing and she LOVED it. I got a little sad when I passed the trail right by my parent's old house - I wished that I could have just stopped by to say hi for a bit. It's hard to put into words how disorienting it feels to move back to a familyless Arizona. How could just four humans not living here anymore so drastically change the way Arizona feels to me? It's like I'm living in a nostalgic ghost town or something and my heart feels homesick for something that no longer exists. It used to be really hard for me to imagine a life where I could just stop by my parent's house during the week just to say "hi" or to get together with them for Sunday dinners or birthdays or sibling's sporting events because I've never lived close to family as an adult. The problem with living in Arizona is that it's too easy to imagine that life that I missed by just six months. At least I have shrimp mango quesadillas and bobas to help me cope with all of these emotions ;)

Kate LOVED the horses!

We met up with some cute fisherman at the Riparian :) Spoiler alert: they did not catch a fish.

• Fishing with a net at Discovery Park - it is seriously the fasted and most fun way to fish :) The kids caught multiple fish within 10 seconds - we all love it!

• Jack and David, who spend their afternoons at the park with neighbors doing "dinosaur" stuff. The other day, they made "hybrid" dinosaur eggs by gluing leaves to rocks. I love their imaginations :)

• Kate's curls! 

It's a hot mess after sleeping and after jumping on the tramp :)