Atticus begins the birthday countdown pretty early around here. He helps everyone else remember how many days until their birthday because then it will finally be his turn to count down to his birthday! It is a serious pleasure being this boy's mom. We have our occasional difficult moments but all in all he is a super helpful, great to spend time with, loves to learn, and super lovable kid. He is smart like crazy and is really excited about learning new things.
I loved seeing his face when we showed up to his surprise and he found out we were going to be fishing (his first time!). He did a little dance. The kids were awesome at fishing, even if they were a little apprehensive when the fish came out of the water. And then the kids loved playing at the playground there for a bit while Jason barbecued the fish then we gave it a try. It was a first for eating trout! It was super hot that day so we headed home after eating the fish.
Atticus was super relaxed when we hit some major traffic coming back into Montreal and we played a green light game that was a pretty big hit. On one road that is just a long stretch of lights we would count how many green lights we would get in a row. I think we got to 11! I'm sure people in the other cars or walking down the street were probably wondering what we were doing calling out numbers with our windows down but we had a lot of fun doing it.
And then there was some super big excitement about opening up birthday gifts around here. Milayla did some extra jobs around the house to earn enough money to buy Atticus a pair of (second hand) roller blades. There was sheer delight across BOTH of their faces as Atticus opened up that gift. And She also was very determined to make him a snow/glitter globe. I know I have said this before, but I will say it again, because seeing these sweet children so excited about giving of themselves to each other and how kindly and generously the give and receive just melts my heart. He then got some lego and books and pads for his rollerblades from Phineas, Jason and I.
Atticus gave the rollerblades a try (and he even let Milayla use his pads because she had saved up to buy her own rollerblades as well but didn't have pads yet) before he got to hang out with me a bit while Jason and Milayla headed to the store to get a missing ingredient. Atticus had picked a white cake, with sliced strawberries on top, and then melted chocolate over the whole thing. It was going splendidly, until the cake platter stand broke in two (with the cake on it) and got little glass pieces everywhere (including the cake). I love that both Atticus and I stayed pretty calm as we watched the cake get damaged. We both knew we could sort it out. And, as it turned out, if the cake was going to get damaged it couldn't have been damaged at a better time because Jason was still at the store and could grab the items that we needed. Then Jason got the new cake in the oven while I got to spend some more time with the birthday boy taking his 7 YEAR OLD pictures! More on those later.
Waffles for dinner, with coloured whip cream (seems to be a new trend around here lately). It was a breakfast sort of day considering that we had french toast casserole for breakfast. Glad the kids like it so much.
And then the long awaited for cake. The birthday boy loved it!
And we definitely could not forget to look at pictures of this awesome boy of ours in his growing up years so far. So many great memories. When did we end up with a 7 year old already? When looking at his birthday pictures from last year we noticed that we had done a family picture right before bed. So, we decided that we would take one again with all of us in the same place as last year. The kids really had fun with that one. Quite seriously. We tried to do a picture of just Jason and I with Atticus as our last picture but Phineas and Milayla didn't want to miss out on being in a picture with Atticus. So he has lots of family pictures.
We sure love Atticus. I love the way he enjoys reading, to himself and to his siblings. I love how encouraging he is to others and how ridiculously smart he is. I love that he is still a great cuddle bug. I love getting to do back scratch songs with him at the end of the day and hearing all his thoughts about the day. And that he is honest and loyal. I love that when I asked him to think about ideas for writing his talk for primary (children's sunday school) he sat down and wrote out an outline for his talk! I love how much he loves and cares about his family. Most importantly, we just love him - through and through. He is such an integral part of our family and we are so grateful to have him and to have spent the day getting to celebrate him and showering him with some extra love and attention. He deserves it!
Love you, Atticus - forever x infinity and more!
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