Birthday Time Again

My big boy had a birthday! I can't even express how crazy it is to me that Eli is six. I didn't get really good pictures of his birthday this year. Everything is on video, but I was a slacker about getting snapshots. We had him open presents one or two at a time on several occasions, which was kind of nice. We started Tues. morning on his actual birthday. He got a lot of Bionicles and Bakugans this year, which he has loved. I like the Bionicles, because he takes them apart and puts them together again or reconfigures them into new versions. (Lego makes them.) He took treats to school, and then had his friend party after school. He went with a dinosaur theme this year. At the last minute, I decided I wanted marshmallow shooters for the party. I looked up some websites with instructions to make them, but John figured out his own way and whipped them out the night before. Then, during the party, he spent most of the time being the target for the kids. At one point, one of the boys must have felt bad for him, because he said, "I'm going to be on Eli's dad's team." What a good dad. My sister, Kimberly, came and helped with this party, as she has the others, and I couldn't have done them without her. Anyway, the kids got a few dinosaur things and played. It was fun.


On Wed., I got Eli out of school early and we went to Lagoon for our family celebration. Between the heat and the tired factor, I don't know that he had much fun during the day, except for the quick swim. However, we went back in the evening and he really enjoyed it. All of my kids loved Puff, the little roller coaster, and Eli really enjoyed Odyssea. The sad thing for me was seeing that Eli is already getting too old for some of the little kid rides. (He looked very bored in the boats.) We have always gone and spent all of our time in that area, and it occured to me that from now on, we won't be able to just stay together and have the kids go on each little ride. It kind of brings me down, this growing up stuff.

Eli isn't enjoying school as much now. In fact, he gets a little teary many mornings and needs a lot of hugs before he's ready to leave me. I think it's just the long day. His teacher is certainly nice, but she's not as warm-fuzzy as his last teacher, and may be more strict. He's actually off-track starting next week, and that could be a good or a bad thing. He may not want to go back when it's time.

Eli needs the computer for some instructions, so I'll write more about him later. I'll just label these last few shots:

Here is Tori folding washcloths. I don't know why I'm including it here:

This picture is from a recent outing:

Here is Eli with the biggest Rolly Poly we've seen. He now enjoys picking up and studying bugs.