to be a SIX year old boy

I'm only four days in to John Paul's sixth year and I'm thankful for another 361 days to enjoy this guy as a SIX year old!  Maybe I feel a bit more bold bragging on this son since I've no genetic claim to pat my own back when I'm telling everyone how awesome he is.  

He came out of his bedroom ready for his big day.  We started with a scavenger hunt (he can read his own clues - simple stuff, of course!) and he was crazy excited.  He opened the first box - containing only tissue paper and a short clue written on yellow construction paper - "Oh, I LOOOOOVE it!" he said.  

Two December birthday bikes!  Julianna knew she was getting hers, but John Paul was quite surprised.  so fun.

We opened presents and ate French toast and then Matt took the big four to fellowship.  I stayed home with Luke, who spent Saturday fighting what I thought was a stomach bug, and he wasn't ready to be out and about yet.  [Turns out that five days later Luke is finally on the mend, and I've concluded that he had a terrible case of food poisoning.... little guy was really really sick for a long time.  He finally turned the corner today and I'm feeling hopeful that this is behind us, but he had me quite concerned.]

Later that afternoon Matt went for a run with John Paul and Isaac on bikes alongside.  This is such a fun thing for Matt and now that John Paul has a bigger bike (with gears) he is ready to keep up with Daddy too.

For dinner we had a dish of jello instead of cake!  Ha! the jello had just arrived in a package, and John Paul was eager to try it out.  He didn't like it :)

We are having birthday cupcakes at his birthday party next week, so he can recover from his jello disappointment (everyone else seemed to like the Jello ok).

With a sick Luke and Sunday fellowship and a day off for Matt on Monday we postponed John Paul's lunch date till January 2nd.  This is a hugely anticipated event for each kid on their big day!

Happy at Burger King with Daddy.  (newly opened right near our apartment!)

His birthday party is next week (December 10th) - we delayed it a bit so that the big kids will be out of local school and can participate too.