7, 8-9-10

This year was Jakob's 7th birthday. I can't believe it!

Here's my lazy man's "cake":


Every other year, the kids can have a friend party. Jake invited over a few neighborhood boys, and his brothers, and we had a swimming party. Well, I should say, we attempted to have a swimming party. It decided to rain on and off -mostly on- the whole time. When they weren't outside, they were eating pizza, opening gifts and playing with them, and eating cupcakes. (Little boys can really pack it away!)

When it wasn't raining, the kids had a blast with the slip and slide and the Waterpillar and the spray guns. I told them all to make awesome poses for me. Here's Cardon:

...and Jake:

...and Jaden:

...and Austin.

The kids moved the Waterpillar under the trampoline. Here's Dylan:

Jakob kept saying "Mother Nature hates us!"-because of the rain. At one point I made all the boys eat their cupcakes outside, but then it started raining really hard, so they came back in.

Ivy was the only girl. She had a BLAST! When all the boys were freezing, and wrapped in towels inside, she was still running around outside, playing in the water.

After the friend party, Jake opened the rest of his gifts. We made him close his eyes when we brought out his new bike.


He got a lot of Bakugan toys. This is his new awesome face that he makes when I say "smile for me".

We ate at IHOP for dinner, which was very yummy. Good pick, Jakob!

My Jakob has been growing up way too fast. He's a really great helper-he'll always run and get things for me and for Pete, and for his siblings. He's enthralled with Pete's computer game, Starcraft 2, and he's pretty good at it, too. Jakob is a wonderful big brother-he always includes his brothers and sister in the things he's doing. He has a great sense of humor. Jake has a really cute smile. His faith is growing as fast as he is-he says really sincere prayers. (Quick story: he had to give a talk in primary, and was really nervous. He told me later that he said a prayer to make him not nervous, and it helped him a lot.) He reads like the wind, and always says he hates school, but I think deep down he likes it a lot. He's a smart cookie, and so creative. He's great at making paper airplanes. I taught him the two bunny-ear way of tying shoes, but he wanted to learn the "adult" way of tying, and picked it up after two tries. He loves riding his bike, jumping on the trampoline, and making spaceships/forts. Jakob is such a sweet boy, and I love him a ton.