Zeke's 8 Years Old!

My youngest is 8 years old today. I feel like this is the year that Zeke really started looking like a bigger boy. Let's be real...he's still so tiny, but he's definitely growing up! 

Let's see what Zeke's been up to over the last year! 

Pizza Hut was his choice for his birthday dinner last year and that's his choice again this year! We did super size it though. We are getting the BIG Box that comes with 2 pizzas, bread sticks and wings. We also got 2 orders of cinnamon sticks. Go big or go home people! 

Enjoying his Nerf Gun birthday present. 

His actual birthday was on an Awanas night....this was his last time riding in his 5 point harness car seat. Techincally he could have still fit in this for another year or two, but he was ready to be a bigger boy and be in a booster seat! 

Getting an award at Awanas...and Daddy being a silly smiler! 

After Awanas we celebrated our boy with a homemade chocolate cake! 

This is the same exact thing he's asked for this year. Our small family celebration is going to be on Saturday with both sets of grandparents. It's going to way more quiet than normal, but that's okay. 

On Zeke's actual birthday I was watching my friend Rachael's 2 youngest kids so I wasn't able to take treats to Zeke's class until the next day. I'm so sad that so many of the things we normally do...even small things like bring donuts to school are just canceled this year. 

Sitting on the table or standing on the benches, but most of the time never actually sitting on the bench. This kid is such a busy body! 

Posing with his big 7 balloon at his birthday party! 

Of course this year we aren't having any sort of birthday party. We are trying to make it special in small ways though. For his actual birthday I let Zeke chose every meal for the day. His choices were....Pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Sandwiches and chips for lunch. Pizza Hut for dinner.

Kaiden is Zeke's best friend....they haven't seen each other in months! 

I did text his mom the other day and ask if she would be okay with Kaiden coming over to play with Zeke on his birthday. I was about 80% sure she wouldn't be okay with it, but surprisingly she was! It makes my heart so happy that my sweet boy gets to see his friend. 

This boy still loves LEGO!!! 

Right now he's all about building garages for his Hot Wheels cars. 

June 5th 2019 was a terrific day! Our sweet boy was baptized at our church. 

Camping is Zeke living his best life. 

Things to climb in...

Things to climb on...

and things to eat that are sticky!

Last day of 1st grade, holding a picture of the first day of first grade. He was so little! 

Buddies!!! 

For our first adventure once school let out was to go to the Flight Museum...Zeke just had to have a picture with the astronaut. 

Even though Zeke is still so small....it's crazy to look back at these pictures and see him wearing clothes that he's clearly grown out of. He really has sprouted up. 

Zeke loves crafts. There are so many times when he'll just break out paper and scissors and start cutting and taping things together. He doesn't even need any help or direction he just let's his creative juices flow. 

Zeke is the only one out of the 4 kids that actually wears his 4th of July shirt from last year. He's proud of his USA shirt! 

For this years 4th of July we are going to have a make up Easter Egg Hunt....why not combine holidays! 

Having fun at Wild Waves! 

Oh man...who knows if Wild Waves will open this year. I was so excited too since Zeke is finally tall enough to ride everything. 

Cute little skinny white boy! :) 

So proud of his star tree he made out of my wooden stars. 

Last summer when I was cleaning out and organizing the basement we found his cardboard Cars from his 2nd birthday. It was so cute that he could still fit in them. 

Zeke learned to ride his bike without training wheels last summer. He was super close the year before, but those cute little short legs of his made it tough. Once they were long enough though it really wasn't difficult at all for him to learn. 

The day we found out we all had lice! Good times! 

Zekers is so good at entertaining himself. We will be watching a movie and he'll just go off and start playing with something. He's not a super couch potato!

My sweet boy! 

Zeke Man is so skinny that even when it's 80+ degrees out at Wild Waves he's still freezing so I have to bring his bathrobe with us and wrap him up in towels. 

It's crazy to see these pictures at the start of school. We had no idea how this year would end! 

Sweet buddy boys! 

Holding the Nerf Gun that finally took his front tooth out! We wanted him to be the one to shoot it out, but he chickened out and then I told him to give me the gun. He thought I was just going to put it down and then I pulled the trigger. He made this noise like he was going to cry and then he noticed his tooth was missing and all was fine. It was hilarious! 

Ice cream for the Back to School Bash! Zeke is actually has the least sweet tooth out of any of the kids. He's more a salty boy...give him all the Cool Ranch Doritos and he's a happy boy! 

My name is Cornholio! 

Another camp trip! Let's pray that we will actually get to go camping this year! 

SO MUCH CANDY!!! 

The teeny tiniest snowflake ever! 

Poor sick guy! 

Zeke very rarely gets sick like this. He's got allergies so he's always sniffing...I've tried giving him allergy meds, but it doesn't seem to do any good. The main problem is the fact that he still hasn't figured out how to blow his nose. One day he'll get it! 

Lost another front tooth! 

Cute snuggly boy ready for Christmas! 

Zeke is the only one of the kids that still consistently wears pajamas. The older boys sleep in their undies and Ella sleeps in her clothes. 

More LEGO's to enjoy! 

Zeke still loves dinosaurs, but this has been the first year that he's started to kind of pull away from them. He still gets them out and plays and he still loves learning about them, but there's just been a slight shift.

Owen got this funny game called Doody Head. Each person wears this hat that has Velcro on it and you take turns throwing stuffed pieces of poop at each others head to see if they stick. It's so silly! 

Zeke and his perfect snowball!!! 

Working on his Brain Quest book during homeschooling. One thing I've realized during this whole homeschool thing is he really likes his Brain Quest books where he gets a good selection of different subjects. He doesn't like to sit and work on one subject over and over such as math. He also gets really impatient and bored with his online schooling. I have my suspicions that he truly should be further along at Math and that's why he's so bored.  

Another thing I've figured out during this schooling time is Zeke hates to write. I mean HATES to write. The only thing I haven't had to fight him on writing is his inventory list that he makes every week from the free school lunches we get from the school district. 

Poor Zeke has such skin issues. On the first official day of homeschooling we had to go to the Dermatologist for the skin around his eyes. It was all dry and scaly and I didn't feel comfortable putting steroid cream that close to his eyes. Turns out it was his eczema acting up because it had been so cold and dry. His Dr. prescribed Hydrocortizone cream and these warm compresses. It still flares up, but if we are good with putting the cream on it's okay. Hopefully once the warm summer months get here it will clear completely up. 

Cute boy felt left out when everyone else got glasses. The lady at the eye doctor felt bad for Zeke so she gave him a pair without lenses. 

Dressing silly for Lunch Doodles with Mo. 

Our church has tried really hard to have all sorts of things available during this quarantine time. We have service every Sunday for adults and kids, they have a community connection zoom meeting on Thursday as well. They also had this coloring contest that 3 of the kids entered. Jack ended up winning for the Middle School age group. Zeke and Ella got an honorable mention though! :) 

Helping Mama with my chalk art outside! 

Riding in the back of the truck. At first we were planning on having Zeke in the middle front seat, but then we tried to put his car seat up there and it's just too skinny of a seat...it ends up blocking the seatbelt latch. Not to mention you shouldn't have kids in a car seat in the front seat anyways. Not sure what we were thinking! 

Taking our bikes out for the first time this year, I wasn't sure if Zeke would need to relearn his skills, but he was just fine! 

Being the littlest can come in handy sometimes! 

Poor guy...not only has skin issues, but also other allergies. Years ago he was outside and one of his eyes started to swell. It was so bad I took him to Mary Bridge. They gave him Benadryl and a Popsicle and sent us home. I still have no idea what actually caused it. Fast forward to the present and thankfully I have the experience that I do so we didn't rush to the ER. Sweet boy either got into something in a bush or it was from the grass that was all over his coat. Either way poor guy just looked pitiful! Thankfully after just a couple days on Benadryl he was right as rain! 

Still a little swollen, but wanted to be outside helping when he could. 

My sweet Zeke man...this year your birthday looks a lot different from what they have in the past. No theme party with a bunch of family and friends. I did think about doing one of those drive by parties, but that's just not you. You do not like to be the center of attention. You are an outskirts kind of kid! You get super shy and don't know how to be when all eyes are on you. There's no way I wanted to make you uncomfortable during this weird time. So small and quiet sounded just right! We will have fun tonight with just our little family eating pizza and watching Call of the Wild. I am so happy that you get to play with Kaiden today. He is your one school friend that you just clicked with and it's so handy that he lives right here in the neighborhood. 

You are just the sweetest boy and this year you have grown a lot in height, but also in maturity. I very rarely have to ask you to use your big boy voice. Thank goodness...I swear there was a time when I thought I'd be saying that for the rest of my life. You are also getting much better at dealing with life and eating the food you are given. There are still times when you dig your heals in and decide that it's better to sit at the table for over an hour than eat what's on your plate. We decided to try having you sit at the table until bedtime because if we gave you the option to go to your room for the rest of the night you were more than willing to do that night after night. 

You are such a cute little clumsy boy. You are always hurting yourself. We tell you over and over that if you didn't hurt yourself you'd never get hurt. Most of your injuries are due to you running. You are always running places and most of the time you don't have shoes on so it's your feet, toes or legs that get injured. It is a miracle if one day goes by without hearing you cry! 

My sweet boy you are 8 years old! Such a big boy! I'm so proud of the growth you've had this year. The bigger boy you are becoming. You are going to be in 3rd grade later this year. CRAZY!!! You are most definitely still the baby of the family, but I can see you shedding the baby part. You still like to be silly and a sort of class clown and that's normal for the last kiddo. You still struggle with having serious conversations with people. I did have a breakthrough with you when we had a serious talk laying on my bed together. I think you get really intimated when you're facing someone so laying next to me and talking about something serious and not having to look into each others eyes made you more comfortable. You have always been different from the other kiddos so I just have to figure out what works for you! 

Zeke I love your sweetness...you have a very tender heart. I know that God gave your certain traits for a reason. He has prepared good works for you to do and I pray that He would be your guiding force all the days of your life. I pray that you would lean into Him and know that you are loved. 

I love you so much Bobee!!!  

Happy Birthday Zeke Russell!!!