It's June, and Porter is 7. SEV-EN!!!!

June has proven to be a busy, busy month.  With graduations, birthdays, end-of-year celebrations, and dance recitals...not to mention packing up our home of 6 years...we're exhausted!  But the kids continue to bring us smiles, pride, and endless joy.

Emma Rose had her year-end dance recital on Friday evening.  She did a great job both in her tap and in her ballet recital. She really is so graceful.

Emma Rose's recital outfit

Posing, on her way to the recital

She really was so proud of herself! 

Saturday, we spent hours packing up our house and moving into Nana & Papa's, with the help of Uncle Zach, and his adorable girls.

Sunday began with a fantastic, Bronco-themed party for Porter.  He invited his cousins, his 3 best buddies from his soccer team, and the kindest girl he knows, Sofia.

The kids competed in a scavenger hunt race.  They had to make funny faces in the process:

Sofia, Avery, and Caroline

Jojo, Clayton, and Alex

Porter, Ansley, and Emma Rose 

For the final game of the party, the kids helped Porter on a treasure hunt.  The clues ultimately led to this treasure, a 24" mountain bike with gears...and Bronco colors.

Porter's face was priceless when he realized his treasure hunt didn't end with the typical "Starburst" candy as the treasure, but rather the bike he's been ogling for months.

He had tears in his sweet little eyes.

Porter loved every ounce of his friends and his party:

After his birthday party, he rounded up the neighborhood boys for a bike ride.

Jackson, Max, Porter, & Christopher, the neighborhood boys!

And that evening, Emma Rose announced that she wanted to lose her training wheels so she could bike with Porter.  Corey took off her wheels and prepared to help her.  As he was throwing away the wheels, he turned around to watch her taking off on her bike, all by herself.  She was hilarious.  She was riding with her legs parallel to the ground, and balancing while doing ballet moves while going 90 miles per hour.  Who knew?

Today, Porter is 7.  SEVEN!!!!  I can't believe how fast the past 7 years have flown by.

This morning, for his birthday breakfast, he requested Greek yogurt chocolate chip pancakes:

Emma Rose wasn't too upset about those pancakes either...

After a day of Porter's choice, including watching the Angry Birds movie, riding his bike, building legos, and eating at Parry's Pizza for dinner...

He opened his big present from Dad, new powder skis:

It was a pretty good birthday...a pretty good year.  As always, I wrote him a letter.  Here is part of it:

Smart, sweet, know-it-all Porter,

My favorite part of every morning is when you quietly sneak into my bedroom and check to see if I’m awake (I always am…although I sometimes fake it!) and you give me a bear-hug and kiss.  I told you, just yesterday, that I will literally bawl the day that you feel it’s uncool to hold my hand in public.  

While you are swarming with extroverted testosterone that keeps you wanting to embark on any new and fun adventure that you can create and embrace, 15 friends in tow, you are caring and concerned about others.  It is somewhat hilarious and totally endearing to watch you lead the pack of neighborhood kids, boys and girls, 3-year-old to 12-year-old, every nationality, in fun and games.  The neighborhood parents always tell me how much they love it when you come over to play because you’re so respectful.  I’m proud of you for that.

You just finished 1^st grade at Ben Franklin Academy with Mrs. North, who you LOVED!  You got straight-A’s. You’re such a smart kid and such a hard worker --- and player.  You had an hour of homework each day this school year: 20 minutes of Lexia, 20 minutes of reading, and 20 minutes of math homework.  So, you being you, worked out a way to maximize playing time in the afternoons by ordering me to wake you up with enough time to read and complete Lexia before school, and you did your math homework on the bus-ride home.

You continued to swim, ski, and play soccer this year, but you also picked up golf in Hawaii last summer!  You were a natural.  You now love to hit golf balls with daddy, and after meeting Craig T. Nelson (“The Coach”) on the MaKai golf course there (he confirmed you were a good golfer!), and receiving private lessons from a pro, we’re pretty sure you have a solid future in golf!  You were lucky enough to join the soccer team, the “Tiger Sharks” this year, where you were so in awe of your professional-soccer player coach, but more, where you met some of the nicest friends you’ve had to date (in fact, you insisted that 3 of them - Jojo, Clayton, and Alex - come to your friend birthday party this year.)  After you were told you could invite anyone you wanted this year, you insisted on those three boys, “because they’re like the nicest kids I know,” Sofia Garcia “because I just love her,” and your Colorado cousins, “because they’re like my best friends,” you literally spent two weeks anxious over whether you’d be able to spend quality time with each kid at your party.  I adore you for that.

In first grade, you’ve excelled in writing, math, reading (you read chapter books daily – just like mom!), science, and social skills.  All the kids in your class often report how funny you are.  You continue to be so curious about how things work.  You LOVED science this year (though you claim, still, that your favorite class is P.E.). You still love Wild Kratts and the information that your gleam from learning about animals and their natural habitats.  But at the end of the day, Gold Rush is your claimed favorite show to watch...

This year we had some great adventures as a family.  We went to Legoland in Carlsbad, CA for your 6^th Birthday (a great adventure that ended badly when Spirit Airlines canceled the flight home and we had to drive home in a minivan where you and Emma Rose slept on the floor and watched Phineas and Ferb and Barbies videos all the way home.)  We also met Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Jarrod, Aunt Lori, Dylan, and Morgan in Hawaii for a fun-packed family adventure.  We spent many weekends in Breckenridge, Keystone, and Vail, skiing, and over Spring Break, you went down your first double-black diamond with Daddy at The Canyons in Park City, Utah!

Next week, we will be moving out of the home that you have lived in since you were 9 months old -- where you took your first steps on your own, where you first said your ABC’s, where you met your little sister (who absolutely adores you, and to whom you are nice to 60% of the time), where you made so many friends who waiting for you to lead them on a biking trip on the trail, a nature-exploring adventure, or to play cops, president, and whatever else you seem to come up with. As regimented and resistant to change as you are, I am proud of how matter-of-factly you have taken this change.  I didn’t even know that you were nervous until I read your letter to your 2^nd grade teacher last weak, and you told her that your greatest fear is making friends when you switch schools in 3^rd grade. I am nothing short of confident that in our new neighborhood, once we get there, you will, again, immediately make new friends and kindly lead them in new adventures. 

I think one of the happiest days this year for me this year was May 8, Mother’s Day.  Honestly, it was a little bit of a rough day for me, but that evening, after we finished reading the Bible Book (a year-long kids’ version of the Bible that you have absolutely loved and absorbed), you told me that you wanted to go into your room with me and ask Jesus to come and live in your heart.  And that’s just what we did.  I feel so blessed that you are my son for that...

I am proud of the kind and intelligent, and curious young man that you are, and the person that you are carefully considering becoming.  You are going to be somebody really impactful to many people if you simply embrace the person that God made you to be, and trust in Him.  Your name means leader and guide.  You are that in so many ways.  I pray that you empower your name’s sake. You are good, and you are hard-working, and you are kind.  I am proud of you.  No matter the words, the experiences, the changes that lie ahead, I love you – through the great and through the ugly. I am the luckiest that I get to be your mommy.

I love you to the moon, to the sun, past this universe, and back.  Love,

Mommy