It's Great to be 8! Part 1

Birthday number 2 for the month of June. I'll admit, I always feel a little sad for Jack that his birthday is right after Nathan's. Often he gets the same presents so there aren't too many surprises and often I am a little exhausted by Jack's bday and don't put as much effort into it as I might otherwise.

Still, I think the kiddo had a great day!

We started the day out with his birthday party, then went and played with a bunch of friends for a while and then had a party with Josh's family that night. Jack chose Nachos and Tostadas for his dinner and a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake for dessert.

Jack's birthday party was Lego Star War themed. He invited 9 kids I think and only 3 showed up which was disappointing! I think that we underestimated how many people would be out of town the very first week of summer. But the kids that came had fun.

We started the party by making Light Sabers and then I like them have a light saber duel. This was only moderately successful. There was a lot of complaining over broken light sabers...

 Here's the guys (Jack, Kaden, Trey and Lars):

They also did an obstacle course with their Light Sabers that Jack and his friend Trey put together. Then we had pizza and did a pinata. They had to whack Darth Maul with a Light Saber stick to break him open: 

 Here they are preparing to whack him.

Here's the birthday cake. It's the Death Star:

Here's the kids eating cake:

Like I said, later that night we had a family party. Here's his cake from that:

Jack is a great kid. Again, like I said with Nathan, I feel like I write the same things every year, but that's ok because it's who Jack is. 

Jack is our tender kid. He love snuggles and baby animals. Of course those things aren't quite as apparent as when he was little, but he still loves a good snuggle and if he's mad all you have to do is scratch his back and he snaps out of it. 

Jack is a hard worker. I ALWAYS know which kid is going to have his chores done first in the morning-it's Jack. He is responsible and I can count on him.

He's getting good at soccer. He scored in just about every soccer game this year. 

He's an amazing reader! He's read lots and lots of chapter books that are on probably about a 5th grade level and just loves them. 

He doesn't eat much. Nachos and cheese and maybe the inside of rolls. 

One thing I have learned about Jack in the last year is that it is very effective to parent him by leaving choices in his hands. He says he's not going to do something that he is supposed to and all I have to do is say "that's fine, it's your choice" and he inevitably makes the right choice. This is much more effective than forcing him. I am hoping this carries us through his teenage years but I realize the stakes will be much higher then and it will be riskier to leave choices up to him. But I hope we are laying the ground work for that now while the consequences don't matter nearly as much. 

I love this kid so much. He was baptized last week and that's the next post you'll see on this blog. It was a very special day.