And a Birthday Party

 So the piece de resistance to Joel's Birthday was a full fledged Chuck E. Cheese Birthday party:  tokens, pizza and of course the ticket blaster!  Joel is such a sweet kid and it's so fun to do nice things for him because he just eats it up!  And really is so appreciative of everything.  

Joel in his birthday crown.  Happy Birthday!

Our great friends Jordan and Kim.
LOVE these ladies!

Joel's friends Tate-and-Ryan.
That is how he refers to them; Tate-and-Ryan. 
Although, they're not brothers.  Just good friends.

The birthday crew eating their pizza.

Joel in the ticket blaster!
This was the part he was the MOST excited about!
He REALLY wanted to get the 1000 special ticket.........

And we have a winner!
We spoke to other friends who said that they've NEVER seen someone
get the magic ticket.  We didn't realize how lucky he truly was! 
He was absolutely THRILLED!

Joel blowing out his candles with Chuck E.

The birthday group!
Matthew, Tate, Chuck E., Ryan, Alisa, Joel, Vance and Jo
Happy Birthday dear Joel!

Joel with his buddies Matthew and Alisa.
We adore them and their family.

Jordan and Joel.
Jordan has this spy kit and when Joel saw that she got it for him she was SO excited!

Joel with Tate. 
Joel really looks up to Tate.  We're glad Tate is such a good friend Joel.

A Tale of Two Classes

 T'was open house at the boys school tonight.  So we toured the boys classrooms.  I can't believe we're nearing the end of the school year.  It was fun to go through the boys classes.  The growth in both boys is unbelievable.  It's hard to believe that it was almost a year ago that we did this.

First up was Joel's class room.  The main theme of Joel's class was "We speak for all living things." 

Joel at his desk.

The kids planted flowers.  His teacher made the planters into "Lorax" characters.

Joel sharing his Clifford presentation.

Joel's class have baby chicks. They started as eggs in an incubator and now are in a cage.
They go back to the farm next week.  But the class has enjoyed their visit.
Seriously isn't this the greatest smile?!

Joel with Mrs. A
We LOVE her!  She's amazing this is year has been phenomenal.
Fingers crossed we get a repeat next year.

 Then we were off to Vance's class.

Vance's class had an animal theme as well. 
The owl tree.

The boys in front of the animal writing wall.
Vance wrote about whales.

Vance at his desk.

Vance and his buddy Jared.

Vance with Mrs. J
We ADORE her.  If only she would move up to 2nd grade!

It's been a great school year.  We're rounding out the year- it will be a busy couple of weeks. 

Vance's Mother's Day Program

 As you may or may not remember from four posts ago the boys' elementary school always does a "Mother's Day Tea" for the kindergarteners and their moms.  So a couple weeks ago Vance performed at school.  I of course was THAT mom.  Front row seat, video camera on tri-pod, iphone ready to take snipits I could text to family, and my regular camera too- for the blog. 

Vance walking in- flashing the "I love you" sign. 

Vance was the first speaker and welcomed the moms to the program.

They sang a few songs and then it was the video presentation.  Afterwards we met up for lemonade, cookies and donut holes.  Here's Vance with some of his friends:

Vance and his buddy Noah.

Vance with Madeline, Ella and Hailey.

Vance is quite the popular child in his class.  His social calendar is always PACKED.  Every time I go into class one of his friends is asking if he can come play with them or if they can come to our house.  It's funny because he of course LOVES the attention but doesn't need it.  Although he is always proactive in asking for playdates as well.  He keeps me busy.  But man do I love him!

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!