Dearest Harry Bob,
I can’t believe you are six years old! You are reading like crazy, wonderful at math and counting, excellent at playing Lego Indiana Jones, One of our best helpers, and just about the best big brother to your baby sister in the whole world. We love you so much!
This year we have seen some big changes in you that have been wonderful. You are still very sensitive to things, but have also developed a maturity about which things your sensitive about. Its rare to see you get upset over the color of a cereal bowl anymore or because someone has more than you and now you are more sensitive to sad things or when you know you’ve made a wrong choice. You so love to please us and get really disappointed and tender when you think you’ve done otherwise.
You really enjoyed school this year and were an absolute angel when it came to doing homework. I can only count on one hand the amount of times I actually had to remind you to do your homework because it was just something you did every day the second you got home – and you were so so diligent about it. It was hardly ever a fight – which I SO appreciated. I absolutely have loved that about you.
This year you also read like crazy and really got into learning scripture stories. You absolutely LOVED reading from our Childrens Bible with pictures in it and often would read way way more than needed because you just loved learning all the stories. We would read them together most of the time -as you were still learning to read and needed help with the words – but now you are reading like a champ and rarely need any help at all. You have come such a long way.
You are also an amazing brother. Your older brother loves you and often says how you are his “best buddy” and Dawson adores you as well and likes to play with you the most. Your favorite though is definitely your baby sister and you beg and plead with me each morning and afternoon if you can “go get Adalynn up from her nap” because you miss her so much when she’s not there. You will often ask to take her outside to play as well or to ride bikes with you or play on the playground. She is just the center of your world and everything she says and does make you laugh hysterically.
Speaking of your laugh – Daddy and I both LOVE it. It is seriously so cute and contagious and we love to hear you laugh as often as possible. This year you turned into my little snuggle bug and its been fun to snuggle up with you while reading books, or sit by you at church and have you nuzzle into me. You ask me often to scratch your back and you like to take my hand in yours or move my arms so they are wrapped up tightly around you. Its really cute.
Your hobbies right now seem to mostly centered around anything electronics with your favorite thing to do being “playing games.” Oh how you are your fathers son. When I ask you what your favorite thing in the whole wide world is to do, your answer is always very matter of factly, “play games with Dad.” It is your pure loves passion and where most of your world revolves right now. However, if I were to pick some other favorites I would say that you also really love hiking, fishing, camping, and of course going to our Logan Cabin. You love our little family trips we take and spending time in the outdoors.
This year you had Mrs. Evans as your Kindergarten teacher and you absolutely loved her. Most of our ward was in your class and you loved riding the bus home with friends and chasing all the girls at recess. It was your favorite game to play and usually what you told me was the “highlight of your day.” Silly boy! You sure do love those girls! Mrs. Evans always raved about you at every parent teacher night and never once did you even get a yellow light in her class. You were always so well behaved and good and were at the top of the class in reading and math. Way to go buddy! You worked really hard this year and it all paid off.
Some of your best friends right now are Treighton and Dax Batty (who live 3 houses away), Wade Hoover, Landon Cox, Jacey Muir, Connor Millet, Ethan Lau, and of course your big brother Branson. Outside of our neighborhood you like Will and Sam Jurgens, and then you absolutely adore your cousins Kollin and Caden and Liesa’s Collin too. You seem happy playing with just about anyone though and make friends easily.
For your birthday this year you were really “easy peasy” about everything and just had a few requests. 1) Go to our Logan Cabin, and 2) Eat your favorite foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Anything besides that you really didn’t care about. You didn’t have a strong preference on your cake (which came in handy since we were up at the cabin and had to get creative) and didn’t even ask for anything in particular for your birthday (but you loved the present I picked out for you). You didn’t even want a party, but just to be at the cabin for the weekend. And because of that – your birthday was a complete success!
We started off your morning by singing to you and letting you go and see and open your presents. We actually had you open them on Tuesday though (your birthday wasn’t until Saturday) because we were leaving for our cabin on Wednesday and wanted to give you some time to play with your presents before we left. You loved being able to extend your birthday for as long as you could!
For your birthday you scored lots of new clothes, two pairs of shoes, markers, candy, and a three in one arcade center where you could shoot hoops, play hockey, or kick goals in during soccer. You thought it was the coolest present ever and loved playing ball with your brothers and Dad.
You as always enjoyed helping Dad assemble your gift too!
We had fun playing all three games afterwards for a family night activity
At the cabin our celebrating continued and you kindly agreed to do a cream cheese chocolate roll instead of a cake this year even though there were no fun toys on top. You were really excited about that and mostly just wanted to pick out your favorite ice cream (which was Neapolitan). So we celebrated with the chocolate roll and then went outside for Neapolitan ice cream cones! You were in birthday Heaven. Notice our awesome “match candles” we used for your cake. You have to get creative when you in a little cabin out in the middle of nowhere! 🙂 And we won’t mention how we had to try 2-3 different times to light them because they kept burning up so fast and would die out before you had time to blow them out. ha!
Cutting the cake
After cake we went outside to eat our messy ice cream cones! Yum!
We also celebrated your birthday by having waffles with ice cream and fruit on top for breakfast, having frozen pizzas for lunch (after our hike to Tony Grove with the Smiths) and then going out to dinner at the Texas Roadhouse where Harry got to ride on the cowboy saddle and we all gave him a big Yee-Haw. Sure was a great birthday for a great little boy! We love you Harry!