Through My Eyes: Six years old!!

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Six years old!!

My boys on their 6th birthday

This year they have:

Lost a combined total of 7 teeth (Joseph 4, Brigham 3)
Learned to swim
Earned senior yellow belts in Tae Kwon Do
Learned to sound out words and read simple books
Learned basic addition and subtraction
Lived in three different houses (one in FL, two in TX)
Graduated Kindergarten
Flown on 7 airplanes
Fallen in love with Scooby Doo and the mystery gang
Furthered their love for "experiments"
Gone the whole year without a trip to the ER
Had their first trip to the Principal's office (ok, just Joseph on that one)
For the first time had to say goodbye to beloved pets and friends
Had five haircuts
Saw snow fall (at least, for the first time in concsious memory)
Gone on their first father-son campout
Finally grown tall enough for most of the "good" roller coasters at Sea World and Disneyland
Become sweet-natured, curious, sometimes stubborn, always affectionate, mostly respectful, occasionally mischeivous little boys!

Today Brigham and Joseph turned six. I can no longer count their years on one hand. We had a nice, simple day. Mama (Grandma Frandsen) gave them each chocolate chip and blueberry muffins with birthday candles for breakfast before heading off to Utah again to take Abe to BYU. The boys watched Spy Kids while I got a few things done, then we did some errands and went to Fosters Family Donuts for the boys to pick out a donut (I didn't think we'd be doing birthday cake, so that was the substitute), then home for another movie, 101 Dalmations (can you tell I let the boys do whatever they wanted?), then an afternoon of playing and swimming before a barbecue with Brigham and Christine and some friends of theirs in the area. After dinner and more swimming, Christine made the boys (and Uncle Brigham since the twins share his birthday!), a wonderful chocolate cake. Then off to bed!

I love my boys so much. Sometimes it amazes me that every mother can love their children as much as I love mine!

Six years old is a wonderful age. I just love how every night Joseph wants me to read him a section of the "How Science Works" book that Grandma has in her house, and yet still wants to curl up right next to me in bed. Brigham is so big-brotherly to his little cousins (he really is, it's adorable and also sad to me since I'd love to see him with another baby brother or sister for reals), and yet he still feels completely free to run around the house naked. It is such a precious combination of growing maturity and awareness of the world and people around them, and the vestiges of infancy and blissful innocence of early childhood. I think sometime this year I may start seeing some of that truly innocent little-boyishness that they still have fall away, and I will be very sad. But maybe not, maybe they'll hang on to early childhood a little longer. For now I will savor every moment of it.

Here are some pictures from the day. The black and white sequence is one I especially love. Far from technically perfect, it does capture their relationship and their personalities right now. Click on it to see a larger version.