Carter Turns 6

Carter turned 6 on September 22nd. He's getting so tall. I can't get over how much he grew this summer so I was relieved when the grandparents all bought him pants! He's got more camo pants than any kid I know. We had cake on his birthday with the grandparents and then had a cousins/friends party over the weekend. This was our first destination birthday party. I loved the fact that the house didn't need to be cleaned only for it to get trashed by little dirty feet, not that I mind all the little feet. It just gets to be a lot of work. So, we hit the bowling alley. The kids had a super fun time, even Paul and Elliot. They set up a metal rack in one of the lanes so they didn't have to carry around the ball. It simply rolled right off. No wonder they had the best scores, a straight shot every time.

Let's see...Carter updates. He's now a big Kindergartener. Jeremy and I had teacher conferences this past week. I gotta say she was straight with us. Sometimes I have a glorified view of Carter ;-) , thinking he rarely gets into mischief (I'm thinking this is a first born thing). Anyhow, she said he's empathetic with others and very nice to the kids. She called him Happy Carter, makes friends easily. However....(this is when you know it's not all good news) he also likes to join in when someone is getting out of line. She said he's curious and gets distracted by things that look fun, even though it's not what they're supposed to be doing. She of course said it in a nice way, but we got the message. So, we'll have to work on the leadership skills. :-) All in all, the reading and writing skills are fine, but she doesn't want him to fall behind. It definitely was a helpful conference, but I left thinking, what about "Carter is my favorite kid in class!" b/c obviously he's mine. Every mom thinks so.

He's been a little different at home, a little more rough housing going on, which I gather he's picking up playing football on the playground. He still loves to ride his bike and go on the swings. He recently made it across the monkey bars, one at a time. He's working on alternating. Carter's starting to read a bit. Her philosophy is using fundamentals and phonics (I almost spelled that wrong!), so sort of old school since I had been hearing so much about sight words. I don't know which is better. Any thoughts out there, school teachers? He does seem to be picking it up. He's very interested in science and how things work. He likes the shows "Factory Made" and "How Do They Do It?" on the Science Channel. We make him fast-forward the commercials, since they're not always kid friendly.

He wanted a fishing cake so this is my lame attempt, once again. I used a lego man and made a blue pond out of frosting, a fishing line out of kitchen twine.

Here are Leah, Elliot and Carter warming up before the other kids arrived.

Showing off his "6" candle

All the kiddos from left, Crawford, Hayden Bridget, Lane, Carter, Madeleine, Leah, Kate, James, Trenton and Molly
Right from the party, we headed to Middle Bass to spend the rest of the weekend with Jeremy's parents. We hadn't been all summer. Mike was so good about the cold weather since the kids really wanted to get in the water. He improvised and instead of tubing behind the jetski, he tied a board to the back of the golf cart. Good times!!

Even Ginger had to try it

Here they are in the loft, which they can not wait to sleep in someday.

Sunday afternoon before we headed back, Carter begged Pop-pop to put the skis in water. It was freezing, but they did it! Here they are backing off the trailer.

Carter had a great birthday and great birthday weekend. We enjoyed it too. It's fun watching him have fun. He can be kind of serious at times, but also knows how to have a good time. Happy 6th birthday Carter!!! We love you.