In many ways, this fifth year has been your biggest and most formative year yet. You began as a full-blown preschooler, and now at 5, I see glimpses daily of the boy who will climb the bus to elementary school in mere months.

You continue to have an all-in attitude for any fun activity or family outing. I want to remember forever how you refer to us as “guys” as if we’re simply three roommates, and not necessarily a child and his parents.

You continue to do well in school and are becoming more and more interested in reading, while already able to sound out some simple words all on your own. If the book topic is anything military or police, you are PARTICULARLY interested.

I’ve seen you grow by leaps and bounds this year in patience and tenacity. You have my (sorry) desire to be an instant expert or you’re not interested, but I’ve seen you stretch this as you’ve gone from wanting Dad to build all the LEGO sets to barely letting us watch and you follow each step meticulously and see the project through to the end with little or no help.

You think any and everything Dad does is the coolest, the latest of which is introduce you to video games. Again, it’s an exercise in learning and perfecting as you go — you have to fail a bit to get better, and more often than I’ve seen you storm out of the room to take a break from it all, I see you come back to it with renewed determination and frown at the level until you’ve finally mastered it.

You’ve explored a lot of new activities per your request this year. You stopped soccer at school which you’d be doing for a while, in favor of a round of swim lessons this summer, followed by tennis lessons, and eventually karate. Aside from the last activity with your friend, Owen, you didn’t know kids at these activities and I’m happy that it doesn’t make you nervous to walk in on your own and try something new. You DO articulate to me sometimes that you “can’t find a friend” or “you’re a little nervous” so I know it’s on your mind from time to time, but I’m so proud of how you overcome your hesitation and dive right in.

Despite telling me you are going to stay a kid forever, you have lots of questions about being a kindergartner, and eventually an adult in general, and your preference is to hang with the bigger kids, but I think that’s true of most kids!) You LOVED Vacation Bible School this summer, not so much for the activities or the change in routine, but because the helpers for your group were a bunch of 10-12 year old boys who you were certain were your new besties. You ask me a lot “what can six year olds do? what can ten year olds do?” always curious to know what’s next for you — please slow down growing so my mama heart can keep up!

Of course the big news of this past year has been that you will become a big brother. You’ve rolled with this remarkably considering we weren’t sure ourselves if we’d have another and certainly never gave you any indications that it was a real possibility.

Four and a half into five is such a mature age to get this news as opposed to being even a year or so younger. You’ve had questions (very specific, detailed ones at times that I’ve tried to answer as best I can!) and then there are days that go by and no mention of baby sister comes up. It’s more frequently discussed now that I’m showing, you can feel her kick, and signs of her are everywhere — most recently the nursery in progress and the car seat installed (per your request!). I try not to overwhelm you with information or hit the topic too often, but I’m also trying to slowly prep you for some inevitable changes, like the fact that baby won’t IMMEDIATELY sleep upstairs on the “kids floor” that you’re so excited about, with the promise that you and Dad will have a couple basement sleepovers as a compromise. You were delighted by the newborns we saw at a recent big brother class, and you know how to be careful with a baby, but it WILL be interesting to see how much you try to be the expert toward US – (look out baby girl, you’re about to be parented by THREE firstborns, lord help you!)

As for celebrating your birthday, we gave you the option of a party or an overnight trip to the Lego store. We were thrilled you chose the latter as it gave us a chance to get out of town for a night as a last family of three adventure.

You loved the hotel and hot tubbing, and of course we hit the Mall of America for some arcade games, rides, and a trip to Mecca.

Happy birthday to our forever first and the one who made me a mom. I can’t wait to see what this next year holds for you and the amazing ways in which you’re about to grow.

I’m no cook, but I do love a pretty dish – especially when it’s dessert. Whether it’s Memorial Day, the 4th of July, or just any old summer day, you must try this simple treat. I love it as a way to include kiddos in the kitchen — they can wash and chop fruit, scoop Cool Whip, and of course cut stars out of the poundcake!

You don’t even need directions or an ingredients list — just slice up a frozen Sara Lee poundcake (and cut into stars!), add sliced red and blue berries (I used strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries), and add a tub of Cool Whip. Light and refreshing and oh-so-patriotic-summer!

When we built our home four years ago, we had an idea of what we wanted to do with our basement level, but we weren’t in a huge hurry with so many above-ground decisions to make in the meantime. Page drew out a rough idea and our builder framed it for us, and stocked it with drywall. And that was how it sat for a year or so. Slowly, we’ve been moving it forward over the last couple of years.

We’ve been using this lower level so much now that it’s complete, starting with our living room. The leather couches moved down here (finally!) and they are perfect for family movie nights. I love that we kept it light and neutral down here (paint is Sherwin Williams “City Loft”, trim is SW “Extra White”) since our only natural light comes down the stairwell from a window, and from the two egress panes on one end of the house.

The play area is as getting as much use as ever (and the Ikea Algot toy closet has paid for itself in spades!). You can see more of the toy closet and the inside of the playhouse here.

Crew’s under-the-stairs playhouse is one of my favorite projects to date!

We tried to maximize the daylight by going with glass doors to the gym. Page picked this wall color (SW Oceanside) and I admit I was skeptical at first, but I love the change of energy and mood when you walk in here (which I need to do more often than I am right now. Ha!)

This black metal plaque from Magnolia is my favorite detail in here.

Here’s a quick peek at the guest bedroom and bathroom that I wrote more about in previous posts.

The last pieces of the puzzle were the bar and golf simulator. We bought stock cabinets which I painted (SW “Cascade”) and we built the counter from butcher block stained Carbon Gray by Varathane. We debated adding a dishwasher down here but after so much up-and-down in our last basement bar with dirty glasses and snack bowls, we opted to include one this time around. We did vinyl flooring because of the nature of basements -it’s from Home Depot and the color is Weathered Wood.

Page used remnant pieces from the counters to create floating shelves and found the hardware on eBay. The faucet and cabinet hardware all came from Amazon.

The golf simulator is by SkyTrak and Page installed it himself. We had to walk on many, many 1-foot squares of turf before he found “The One” 🙂

I love how all the textures and tones came together in this area. The stone isn’t the exact material we have upstairs, but it’s so darn close and carries the vibe from upstairs down to this lower level.

And I’d be remiss in not pointing out the barn door we had built as a solution to the noise of both the simulator and if we want to watch a movie down here after Crew goes to bed. It’s hard to convey in photos but this thing is massive. You have to love a talented trim carpeter – this is perfectly cut at the bottom to hug up and around the skirt trim that comes down our stairs for a sealed closure.

Another favorite little detail is the angled corner step down into the simulator. I will never forget showing up late ONE TIME to our builder meeting and noticing they had marked a sunken foundation. I knew exactly what had been decided without me – ha!

Thanks for following along. I’m so happy to have this big project checked off our list, and we’re finding so much validation in how frequently we are using the space!

All traces of toddlerhood are long gone — full on kid mode and it’s all about blasters, all day every day. You will ditch us in a heartbeat for your friends, which means any kid in the neighborhood.

We kept your birthday low-key this year, having a couple friends over for pizza and cake, then heading to the nearby bowling alley.

 

You are daily out on the trampoline or swingset with all of them. You get intensely embarassed if we dare to correct or discipline you in front of anyone else and we frequently refer to you as “emo” right now. You’re not napping very well at school which makes for draining evenings but on days you’re home, you can still easily clock 1.5 to 2 hours and go to bed as usual.

We finally kicked a habit that went on for a few months where you’d come into our bed if you stirred at any point in the night — often around 1am or so. You’re not bad to bunk with (you hardly move) but as you hit four, it made sense to try and get you staying in your own bed again. With the promise of a bike you filled in a chart of seven nights of staying in your bed, and with the help of a no-wake nightlight you now happily stay upstairs until at least 6:45 when it lights up. Life changed for all of us!

You’ll easily sit through a full movie now and are into Jurassic Park and Star Wars with Dad. You’re much more into drawing lately and will get out markers on your own without me even around and I’ll find you drawing for tens of minutes on end. You have rediscovered mazes and are devouring workbooks of them. You can write your name and several other letters without example, and most numbers. With a little prompting, you can spell mom and dad and write both out. You are desperate to read, but also get frustrated quickly if it’s not perfect. You aren’t overly into the “intro to reading” series books, but would prefer to read “real” books. I do love that you still love to be read to, and frequently you’ll ask to read aside from our routine of reading at nap or bedtime.

You are SO excited about Easter and more than the basket, the hunt for the eggs. I don’t know if you even really care what’s inside, you just want to find them. So of course, I went overboard on that part and there are three dozen plus a gold one to find ha! But I figure that way at least the fun will last a few minutes. 🙂