Parker Lost a Tooth

Our first lost tooth!

It had been loose for quite awhile, but Parker isn't big on wiggling his teeth, so it came out slowly.

The next one came out just a couple weeks later.

Rollin in the dough

With his tooth

Cheese

Parkers Birthday

At the end of December, Parker turned 7.

He wanted a Star Wars cake. 

I took an easy way out by ma,ing the cake and the logo, but just putting figurines (his present) on top for the bulk of the decorations:

Party Time

A little after Parkers birthday we had a party for him

Here's the cake I made for him:

Opening presents: 

And a video of singing happy birthday

Parker Turns Six

At the end of December my Parkerboy turned 6 years old.

First we started with our traditional birthday-child picks breakfast. 

He picked out some very sugary cereal

I took a couple pictures and I love his progression from serious to silly:

He was pretty into angry birds and had expressed a little disappointment at how many levels were locked since we had only downloaded the free versions. So after breakfast we gave him the iPad to play and it had the full versions of a few Angry birds games for his birthday.

Jason was going somewhere in the afternoon so I decided to add to Parker's special day by taking them to McDonalds, they had some junk food played for a few hours and then got some ice cream. 

We then took him out to dinner at Red Robin. 

At the end of the day Parker said "Today was like a treat" how sweet- I'm glad he felt spoiled on his special day. And couldn't tell him enough how grateful I am that he was born into our family!

His six year stats are as follows:

Height: 46.5", 75%

Weight: 46lbs, 50%

A little about my boy at six years old

He loves learning so much. He asks great questions and loves to find out more about almost anything. HE wasn't interested in taking ANY time off from school after I had the baby, and even on holidays he wants to do at m least something for school.

Though we have very strict limits on screen time he LOVES every second he gets to play the iPad. He loves playing games and will talk your ear off about them and draw pictures of games and design his own games and use toys to play his own games and "levels". He loves games!

He is still very observant and picks up on little things all the time and everywhere. He also has a great memory- so that helps him make connections and learn so much about everything!

He loves his sisters and baby brother and is very often such a good helper. I try to balance the need to teach him responsibility with the need to let him be a child, and I love to see how often he is willing to go out of his way to help someone- He helps because he knows it's good and he wants to from his heart.

He is still VERY high anxiety, but he can sometimes rationalize with himself and overcome his nerves. I'm grateful to see him working to overcome things that are hard for him.

From 4-5

Parker from 4 years to 5!

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Parkers 5th Year

So this is pretty late, but I need to put some stuff down about Parker as he turned 5 years old.

First off, we had his Dr appointment and here are his stats:

Weight: 40 lbs... 40%

Height: 44 inches.... 67%

Keeping with the pattern of tall and skinny.

During his fifth year Parkers love of learning grew like crazy. He learned to read and never looked back, by his fifth birthday he had read over a dozen chapter books on his own. (stuff like magic tree house, etc.)

Parker also loves math, he has no idea that math isn't "fun" he enjoys having me write out word problems for him. 

Parker is just as sweet as ever. A little shy maybe but he truly loves others and wants to be kind to them, even if he is often to nervous to speak to them.

His obsession with trains made way for an obsession with space. ALL things space; planets, stars, galaxies etc. Oddly enough he says he has NO interest in being an astronaut when he grows up. He claims he wants to be a "study-er" and sometimes says that what he wants to study is space.

Parker loves jokes. Knock-knock jokes are probably the favorite. It's funny to me how he can laugh at the same joke over and over and over again.

I can't think of more now, but at least we've got something down. I LOVE this little boy!

Parker turns 5

Parker turned 5 at the end of December and we started the day with our traditional "birthday child chooses WHATEVER they want for breakfast". 

Parker found Cookie Crisp cereal and was blown away by the idea of eating lots of cookies for breakfast so that's what he had picked out.

So excited to eat cookies for breakfast

He loves reading the box, including nutritional info... He tried to convince me that they weren't unhealthy because of all the added vitamins (Nice try buddy)

He spent more than a month looking forward to his 'Space Party' because he was so in love with all thing space.

And it was hard for him to understand why we would wait until the day AFTER his birthday but eventually the day came and he was so excited. We decorated with a few decorations and the piles of space stuff he already owned from our homeschool unit and Christmas presents.

Space stickers

Start balloons, streamers, and not one, but TWO solar system models

Part of the 'decor' was also this chart that Parker and I made together, so that Parker could find out what the favorite planet is:

We have to wake Aria up at 4pm each day so we know she'll sleep at night, and she didn't feel like partying, she wouldn't change out of her pajamas, leave her blanket or move from that chair

Parker also helped me make a planet pinata and he decided to paint it like the Earth

Terra, trying to break the pinata

Ryder, with a bit more gusto

Parker's turn

Just a goofy picture of Parker

Opening presents

A couple days later, Parker made me a card that said "I love you and I appreciate your present for me" (though appreciate was a bit hard to translate from his spelling.) 

We had gotten him a book and a telescope.

I had a coupon, so I just got a store bought cake, and I made the cake pops to look like our Solar System

And here is a video of us singing Happy Birthday

Parker is 4!

My sweet Parker turned 4 at the end of December.
He was super excited for his birthday.

Eating Special birthday breakfast
(junk cereal)

When he woke up in the morning I told him Happy Birthday and even sang to him. Several times throughout the day I would sing a birthday song to him, either the traditional 'Happy Birthday' or one of the primary songs-
Every time he would just look at me and when I was finished he would say "I want to just sing Rudolph, instead." So we sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer a handful of times on his birthday.

That evening we had a combined birthday party since my nephew's birthday is just a few dats after-- and my sister and her family were in town.

A couple days later we went to the doctor. Parker was so brave with his shots he had one little tear roll down his cheek- and then just wanted hugs afterwards. It was so sad and sweet.

At the doctor he was:

 39.4 lbs--60th%

41" tall--60th%

And a few pictures of my handsome boy:

Nursing his pink bear

Hammering some packing foam in the backyard

silly

Rockstar!

And some things going on with Parker lately:

He is super smart and makes some amazing connections. And generally speaking he is, I think, much more logical than the average 4 year old. But he recently has started saying things which are obviously correct, but then he looks at me like- "See, mom- I figured it out"
Simple silly things like.
"If we go outside- then we'll be out there, but if we don't go outside- then we'll be in here"
"If it's cold then it's cold; if it's hot then it's hot"
You get the idea- perfectly infallible logic, however unimpressive the conclusion is.
One that I loved though (and it did seem pretty smart)
I don't remember what it was but he kept trying to take something away from Aria and saying that it was his. I told him it was everyone's. And he responded "If it's everyone's, it's just the same as if it is no one's" And if you think about it, he's right.

Parker loves helping. He loves to run and grab something, help stir, help with Terra, etc. And he is such a good brother.


Parker doesn't talk like a 4 year old- He uses big words.
He was in the hospital for a couple of days, and needed to be carried since he couldn't walk on his own. I offered to carry him and he said "Actually, I would rather have Daddy carry me instead" The nurse was shocked and even laughed a little at the way he said it. But then he added "Because you're just a little bit more shorter than Daddy."
I'm not rephrasing his sentences- he really uses the words actually and rather.
He'll also say: perhaps, compared to, especially, regarding and few more I can't think of.


Parker loves trains. Seriously, he's obsessed. A pretty good amount of what he got for Christmas and his birthday involved trains in some way.

Parker has an unbelievable imagination. He's always playing pretend, and as he's gotten older it has gotten more involved. It would be hard to explain some of his imaginary play- but believe me- it's awesome!

Every night before bed he wants to "Talk about my good day" So we just talk about the things he did during the day.

Oh, how these 4 years have flown by! It makes me want to cry- but I also love watching him get older.