A Very Happy Harry Potter Sixth Birthday

Dear Zane,

Today you turned six and boy did we celebrate. We've been planning this party for weeks and decorating for days. You've colored pictures, made wands, dementors, wamping willows, and sealed envelopes with Hogwarts wax seals. We've surrounded ourselves with all things Harry Potter, watching movies, reading the books, and getting our costumes together. You of course were Harry himself, the younger version of course. Your dad was He Who Shall Not Be Named, little Rowan was Dobby, and I was Luna Lovegood. Your guests all came in costume as well, here's the list of who was in attendance to your big celebration. Grandma was Professor McGonagall, Aunt Abbey was Tonks, Uncle Brent was Lupin, Brendan was the older, darker Harry Potter, Maggie was Hermione Granger, Everett was a dragon, and Aunt Kari and Uncle Able with fellow students from Hogwarts. What an amazing family you have that they went all out for you big day.

 Look at Dobby's little sock!

 Luckily we all graduated from numerous Universities so have lots of black robes to go around.

You have a pretty awesome Dad Zane. He spent his entire Father's Day celebrating your birthday!

Your day started early with presents, arguably too many presents because you spent the morning running around in excitement completely unable to decide which one to play with. Your favorite was probably your Zombie Strike Nerf gun, the only thing you really asked for this year. It has a Z on it, just for you. You also got Angry Birds Legos, a Harry Potter Lego Video Game, Zootopia DVD, The Millennium Falcon, a storm trooper gun, and a few other fun things!! You and your brother had lots of nerf gun fights before the big party.

Nature brought you this fun surprise the morning, your very own toad in your swimming pool. 

Our afternoon was full of Harry Potter fun. You helped me turn the house into a Magical Castle of Wizardry. The decorating and planning is your favorite part, the party itself was just icing on the cake. You played your video game with your cousins, there was Quidditch in the back yard, water balloon fights, water slides, sorting everyone into their houses, wizardry food, and of course Harry Potter movies on both TVs. You were surrounded by love and laughter and had a wonderful time. You got great presents, and big hugs. 

 Here are all your decorations! Voldemort's snake was your personal favorite. The pictures on the wall your wall you and Rowan's art work.

 Notice the hanging candles, just like from the Great hall. (Dollar Store finds are my favorite)

 All the letters coming out of the fire place were addressed to Harry of course.

 My personal favorite decorations were Platform 9 3/4 leading into your room and the sign with all the names of different places to go.

 Grandma got you your much wanted stuffed sloth. You have been asking for one for months. This evening when we were saying our prayers and singing songs you had a blast making him do the sing of the cross and all the hand motions to your prayers. You are quite the silly boy and crack yourself up.

 The Quidditch game had loose rules that mainly involved throwing the ball through the hula hoops. It was great fun and I even hit around some gold shuttle cocks to act as Snitches.

 The cake was a hodge podge of all things Harry Potter. My personal favorite addition were the caramel sorting hats that I mad myself. You enjoyed the Harry Potter figure that had a spoon on the bottom so you could eat your cake, with Harry Potter.

 The menu was all things you requested to eat with as Harry Potter spin. As usual you ate way to much sugar and not enough real food. This ended in your customary throwing up after the party. This happens after all major parties. You body can't handle that much sweet stuff combined with no water. You don't seem to mind though, after throwing up you came right out and got a donut from the broom stick and started spinning around in a chair. Nothing phases you kiddo.

I hope today is a day you remember forever. I hope that when your children turn six you tell them great stories about your amazing Harry Potter birthday. I hope that you remember how loved you are and what an amazingly blessed little boy you are. I love making the pieces of your imaginary world come to life for you. I adore watching your mind work and seeing you learn new things each day. I love your grit and determination to power through obstacles and  your pure talent to always have a great time with whatever you're doing. At six you remain full of energy and spunk. You only have one speed and it's full throttle fast. Everything you do you do with all your heart and soul, love, hurt, eat, throw fits, for better or for worse I can always count on you to give one hundred percent of yourself at whatever you're doing. This year has had high highs and low lows from this, but I try to only hold onto the good. I will imprint your sweet six year old face into my  memory and cherish this day forever. Happy Birthday sweet boy. May this year bring you all the joy and happiness you can handle!

Love,
Mom (Luna)

Zane's 6th Birthday Week: Birthday Interview

Here is the interview I do with the boys each year on their birthday.  I marked the answers that were the same as last year. His favorite color might be the only thing that has remained the same through out the years. I find it really entertaining that if I asked him the same question everyday, I would get different answers.

1.How old will you be on your birthday? Six
2.Who is your best friend? Maggie
3.What is your favorite thing to do? Playing with Maggie and play Harry Potter
4.What is your favorite color? Blue*
5.What is your favorite food? Hamburgers
6. What do you like to do with your family? Going Swimming
7.What is your favorite toy: Mooly*
8.What do you want to be when you grow up? Herpetologist*
9. What makes you happy? Being with Mamma
10.What makes you sad? Not being with Mamma
11.What is your favorite movie? Finding Dory (seen last night) 
12.What is your favorite book? Harry Potter
13.Where is your favorite place to go? Grandma's House and visiting Shy Shy at Grammie and Papa's house.
14.What do you like to do outside? Ride my bicycle
15.What is your favorite animal? Snakes and Penguins
16.If you could go to dinner with anyone in the world who would it be? Uncle Able or Santa Clause
17.What is your favorite snack? Sandwiches and Popcorn
18. What do you want for your birthday? Harry Potter broom
19.Who is favorite Super Hero? Baymax
20.What is your favorite song? Whip and Nae Nae

 Bonus Questions: Who do you want to come to your birthday party? Aunt Trina

Zane's 6th Birthday Week: All You've Learned and Lots of Firsts

I cannot believe all the new things that Zane has learned this year. I feel like this year there has been so many huge steps and milestones met. There were lots of firsts as well. Here's the run down of all the new things my big six year old kid can do now that he couldn't do last year.

First up riding a bike without training wheels. The key to learning this skill is being willing to fall down, a lot. Zane falls down all the time, everyday, so he can definitely handle falling down. He is also a very tough kid with lots of perseverance. Once he decided he wanted to get them taken off he was determine and didn't give up until he had it down. It didn't take long and we had them off and he  mastered it. He would ride all around the neighborhood, all day, if I let him. He's very proud of his new found mastered skill and bike riding is a top the list of our favorite things to do, when it isn't a million degrees outside. 

 

 

 

This year was the first year that Zane went to Sunday school and it definitely was one of his favorite new things this year. I cannot say enough about Miss Maggie's pre-k Sunday school class. Zane has learned so many new things during his few hours of Sunday school this year, I can't even believe it. He learned the Angel of God prayer, Hail Mary, Our Father, and Miss Maggie's "this day is for you" prayer. "We pray with our whole bodies and our fingers point up to heaven." In the few months that he went to Sunday school he learned all about Jesus and His friends, Saints, and all the big Bible stories you need to know. Yes, Zane is able to tell you the whole story of Easter beginning with the crucifixion all the way through His resurrection. I am so happy he loved it and has learned so much. This past week he has been going to Cave Quest Vacation Bible School at St. John the Baptist. We have heard all sorts of fun stories about the things Jesus does for us and how He helps us. There was even a different animal buddy each day that they learned about. Nature and Jesus, win, win!  I adore his new found love of Jesus and definitely needed lots of help from the church to nurture it this year.

 Here he is letting his light shine!

 Here are the two little VBS boys, ready to go shine their lights in the world.

The skill we worked on the most this year was reading. It has been a hard fought struggle and we've both worked very hard to find knew and different ways to enjoy the act of learning how to read. In the end there was a moment when a light bulb came on and things began to click. This is still a huge work in progress. I think that currently he is under the impression that now that he's learned how to read he doesn't really need to work at it anymore. We need to spend a lot more time reading new and different books, but for now we are mainly working on sounding out new words and working on writing words together to make sentences. Keeping Zane's attention long enough to do any of this is a struggle, but I feel much more confident about his abilities to thrive in kindergarten now that he has at least these baseline reading skills.

We have done other school type learning this year, with Zane's favorites including math and cutting skills (of course). This year Zane has worked on lots of addition and subtraction and has mastered most of the simples stuff with numbers through ten. Usually when I try to get him to sit and do some "learning" he wants to do math, a child after his father's heart I guess.

This past month the light bulb has turned on for Zane with his swimming skills. He has passed his swim test at the Y and now has great confidence in his swimming abilities. I feel much better about his ability to get himself to the side of a pool/lake if he were to fall in or jump in unattended. Now we are working on perfecting his stroke and teaching him how to breath appropriately while he is swimming. He has a great natural ability for it and I'm hoping he sticks with it. Being a swimming mom seems fun and Zane seems very interested in it. I loved to swim, but I don't seem to be great at teaching my swimming skills to others so lessons will continue. 

 Swim lesson selfie with my big boy.

Now as for the many firsts this year.Starting with the first time he drove a CAT machine.

 Sometimes people go a life time without driving one of these.

First fish

 First cannon balls off the dock at the lake

 

 First turtle race

 First sack races

 First day of Sunday School

 First time feeding a bottle calf

 First super ultra blood moon sighting.

 First trip to the State Fair

 

First time to see Thomas

 

 First trip to Texas

 

First Snake hunt

 

First, and second, lost teeth!

 First visit from the tooth fairy

 Registering for kindergarten, a huge first, and the next big adventure for this kid!

What a great year it has been!!!!