You say it's your Birthday

 Today is Joel's 7th Birthday!  Fortunately I'm blogging about it now so I can avoid the chastisement of a FULL year of no blogging.  But for now lets focus on Joel's birthday.

Joel is such a laid back kid that buying for him is WAY too easy.  But two things that have ranked high for him lately have been Skylander's Giants and Beyblades.  So that was the theme of his birthday.  Nama and Pa bought him a Beyblade Battle arena with several Beyblades.  Tj and I bought him the Skylander's video game started pack and Vance got him a Skylander figure.  He was THRILLED with all of it. 

Vance and Joel playing Beyblades.

Joel's birthday started out early when he climbed into bed with me at 6 this morning.  Normally that wouldn't have been a big deal but I had been up until 1 baking his birthday muffins so I was sleepy!  After a half an hour he could not take it anymore and needed to get his birthday started!  So off we went downstairs for said muffins and sausage for breakfast.  Then it was off to school.

Before I dropped Vance off at class we took Joel the goodie bags for his class.  Everyone was SO excited.  One of his friends in class- Lucas- has his same birthday.  So Lucas' mom brought in doughnuts.  The kids were all SO excited.  Then at lunch I took Joel McDonalds and ate lunch with him.  I was so happy that he still wanted me to eat lunch with him.  (It took the sting out of the fact that Vance did NOT want me to give him a kiss when he was saying good bye for school at the Kindergarten gate.)

When Tj got home we finally got to do presents.  Then I was off to make breakfast for dinner- Joel's request.  That boy LOVES breakfast for dinner.  Then we had ice cream with cherries.  

Blowing out his birthday candles.

Vanilla Ice Cream with cherries on top- as requested.

Dad heaping the cherries on.

Joel with his new toys:

With his Skylanders.

And his Beyblades.  (Doesn't that smile melt your heart?!)

Playing video games.

This boy is something else.  It's been a growing year for him.  He has grown leaps and bounds in height.  It freaks me out that his head is chest high on me now.  There are days when I literally am at a loss of what else I could possibly feed him!  There's never any question when a growth spurt is coming on.  But he has also grown academically and socially as well.  He is a TREMENDOUS reader.  I remember his teacher telling us the first day of school that they would leave first grade MUCH better readers.  It's so fun to have him literally be able to read anything he can get his hands on.  (Hence why I keep my phone locked.  LOL)  It's also been interesting to see other people point out things that I tend to take for granted about Joel.  He is such a GOOD kid.  Of course he is still a kid and makes silly decisions and mistakes here and there.  But he has such a good and tender heart.  And he really is intuitive.  His teacher calls him an old soul and is always blown away by some of his insights in class.  Sometimes I wish I could freeze him right where he's at and keep him here forever.  This is such a fun age.  But I'm excited to watch him grow too. 

Happy Birthday my Polar Bear!