Dear Lucas (6 years),

Happy Birthday, my sweet baby boy! It is hard to believe that you are six years old. Soon you will be starting First grade but for now I am glad we still have a few more weeks of summer to keep having fun. Here is what we've done so far:

We discovered a nearby swimming hole thanks to some friends. It's like our own little local beach.

To celebrate the 4th of July we had a pool party at Grandma & Grandpa's house and then had a cookout with friends and shot off fireworks together.

The following week we went to Saint Simons Island for our family reunion.

After our family reunion you went home with Levi and stayed with your cousins for a week.

On the way home we stopped at the gas station with a petting zoo. I realized later we had stopped there exactly a year ago. The first time we stopped there we were headed to Atlanta to have your eyes checked under anesthesia. Your Dad and I were so scared back then.

This summer you and Gabriel have decided that the two of you are best friends since David has seemed to pair off with Jake. It works out since the four of you play together quite often and nobody gets left out this way. You four usually play together while the adults play board games or chat over coffee. The four of you will also be at the same school this year.

One of my favorite things that we've done this summer was to sneak off and get frozen yogurt at bedtime. We had such a good time sitting outside and giggling together under the stars.

Your cousin Kaliegh came down from Massachusetts to visit her Dad for the summer and we got her a few times while she was here. You had a blast hanging out with her and Steven.

Your favorite toy right now are Lego blocks. Your friend Bella sent you a gift card to WalMart for your birthday and you knew what you wanted to pick out before you even got to the store- big boy Lego sets. Before know all you had were the ones for toddlers. You haven't put them down since you got them.

Last night while you were sleeping I filled your floor with balloons. In the morning you were so excited to wake up to your room decorated. I did the same thing last year and I think it is a tradition that we will keep around.

Tonight we celebrated at home and you opened presents from us and then blew out your birthday candles. On Sunday we will have your birthday party and celebrate with your family and a few friends. I can't wait to see what this year has in store for us.

I love you to the moon and back,

Mommy

Introducing Squeakie

Last week we went to Vidalia to visit family and Lucas picked out a kitten.

Yesterday my Aunt Karen brought him to live with us. Turns out he picked out a really sweet cuddly kitten.

Dear Lucas (5 years old),

I have a feeling that "5" just became your favorite number. I know it sounds cliche but it doesn't seem like you should be five already and about to start Kindergarten. I think four was a pretty cool age and you packed so many things into one year (trips to Disney World and California, getting glasses, starting school.) I am excited to see what five brings.

The night before your birthday I snuck into your room and hung up a birthday banner and blew up balloons and covered your floor with them. You were so excited and happy when you woke up and kept asking, "Is it finally my real birthday? Is this my five birthday?" We got you a few presents and instead of giving them to you all at once, we spread them out through the day. I think it made all the birthday fun last longer.

I baked you a strawberry cake just like you asked for and we invited you friend Gabriel over to help you celebrate. You always seem to get two cakes every year, one on your birthday and one on your birthday party. The ironic thing about that is you don't even like cake. You just enjoy blowing out the candles.

Your birthday was pretty low key this year because we were all pretty tired from getting back from Atlanta. We had to go so that your eyes could get looked out closely. Your Dad was thankfully able to go with us and we left the night before since you had to be at the hospital so early. On the way to Atlanta we stopped for gas and stumbled on a petting zoo. It was a pretty fun start to our trip.

I found a cheap hotel for us to stay at and it had a pool so one of the first things we did when we go there was go for a swim. Knowing that you were turning five gave you a new sense of courage and you started jumping in the pool without any floats, goggles, or anyone catching you. You were so proud of yourself. Our room had a king sized bed in it and you were so happy you told us, "I'm going to sleep in the middle and this is going to be awesome because we will all be together."

The day before your birthday we got up and drove to the hospital to get you checked in and ready for your procedure. You were in pretty good spirits before hand and I was totally at peace about everything. I knew you would be okay because you had so many people praying and thinking about you from all over the world.

When you came back from the procedure you were very tired and upset and you just wanted your Mommy, so I snuggled you until it they released us. We got good news and they didn't find anything wrong with your retinas and that means no more trips to Atlanta. I don't know a better way to kick off your birthday.

Lucas, I love you to the moon and back,

Mommy

That Darn Cat

Lucas desperately wants a kitten and loves going over to my parents house because they are currently cat-sitting for a friend.

Lucas: "Grandma, when is that black cat going to poop out some kittens?"

Grandma: "You mean birth kittens?"

Lucas: "When is that cat going to birth kittens?"

Grandma: "Well, that cat is a HE so there won't be any kittens"

Lucas: "Darn it!"

Dear Lucas (4 Years 11 months),

Your very first summer vacation from school is well under way. You keep asking "how many more days of summer do I have left?" You are so worried that it is going to be over tomorrow. Even though you won't admit it I think you miss school though. You have been talking about your classmates and teachers a lot lately. "Mom, when our teachers say 'Criss cross apple sauce' we sit like this and put our hands in our laps and listen" and "Mom, can you show me how to write your phone number? You need to give it to Tatem so she can call me." I am pretty sure that you are going to go back to Pooler Elementary in the fall and it would be neat if some of your friends were in your kindergarten class.

This summer seems pretty tame compared to all the fun road trips we went on last summer but you did get to try out your very first slip=n-slide a few weeks ago. You had a blast but then again you are part fish. You love to be in the water any chance you get. It doesn't matter to you if it is a kiddie pool or a day at the beach. If you are in the water you are happy.

One thing you did get to do so far this summer is go to Vacation Bible School. Your Grandma took you with Shane and Colby and I think you enjoyed it. They had a western theme and ever since you've been wearing a cowboy hat and asking me to make you lassos out of things. You going to VBS made me reminisce about all the times your Great Gram took Lori, Eric, and I to VBS when we were kids. I've been missing her a lot lately, especially since all the fun road trips we took last summer were with her. I am so grateful for the memories of you and her together.

Okay, so we have gone on one road trip this summer but it wasn't really a vacation. We had to take you to Emory in Atlanta so you could see a specialist about your eyes. This time your Dad went with us too and he got to see how much "fun' doctor appointments can be... for instance when we had to hold you down so you could get eye drops put in your eyes while you are screaming bloody murder and saying "Mommy please help me!" We actually have to go back in a few weeks so that you can be put to sleep so they can get a better look at your retinas. They think that you may have holes in your retinas and if so they should be able to fix them with lasers. So part of me kind of hopes they find holes so they can "fix" your eyes and be done with it... so more hurry up and wait.

I'm still watching your friends David and Gabe a few days a week. When the three of you are together you fight and then when you are apart for a day (or even a few hours) you all beg to play together again. Your favorite toys right now are your stuffed dogs and all of you boys like to pretend they are real. Whenever you see a commercial on TV for the humane society you ask me "Mom can we please go adopt ALL of those dogs? They can live hear with us. You have such a big heart.

Really you boys are more like family by now then just friends. One day a few months ago I was driving you home from school and you told me, "You know Gabe and I fight sometimes because we are like brothers." You've also started asking again when you are finally going to get your big brother, oh and you want a kitten to now too. I thought about getting you one of those furreal kittens... those battery operated toys that purr... wonder if they come in a big brother style too?

I love you so very much,

Mommy

Lucas Loves Chicks

Yesterday, Lucas and I went to see the baby chicks at the mall. They were really cute.

Dear Lucas (4 years and 3 Months),

Now that you are in school, time seems to have sped up even faster. I didn't think that was even possible! You've been in school for two months now and we really have our whole routine down. I drop you off at school every morning and then a few days a week I pick you up and then when I am taking care of your Great Gram your Dad picks you up. Every day you come home with some new fact or song that you learned at school. Your excitement about learning new things is so great and I'm so thankful that we were able to send you to school this year.

At the beginning of the month we went out of town and picked you up from school early. When I walked in the classroom you didn't see me so I just watched you playing during your free play time for a couple of minutes. It was really neat for me anytime I get to observe you in your school environment. You just seem so grown up and independent there. As soon as you saw me you got excited and said "Hi Mom!" and ran over to me and gave me a big hug. You do the exact same thing every time I pick you up from school and it makes me feel on top of the world.

One day a few weeks ago you came home talking about how you had a "girlfriend" at school. When I got to go on your field trip to the Pumpkin Patch this weekend I got to meet her. The two of you were pretty much inseparable. You guys had to stand in line together and sit by each other at lunch and on the hay ride. I noticed her calling you "Lukey" a few times and that cracked me up!

It was so cool getting to go on your first real field trip. (A few weeks ago you guys walked down the street to the Fire Station, so if you want to be technical that was your first field trip... but I'm not counting it because you didn't ride on and bus, and because I wasn't there.) You were so excited to get to ride on the bus and it was so neat to see you interacting with all your classmates and to get called "Lucas' Mom" all day long. Now when I pick you up from school all your friends say, "Bye Lucas! Bye Lucas' Mom!" It is pretty awesome.

Your teachers are AMAZING. You can tell they really love their job and they especially love their students and you guys really love them back. This week your school had an after school dance for all the grades. You and a few of your classmates had a ball shaking your little booties and dancing with your teacher. I volunteered to help at the dance and it was only an hour long and I was exhausted! I don't know how your teachers do it. I am pretty that teachers must be undercover Super Heroes.

You've been begging to get a pumpkin to "starve" and make into a Jack-o-lantern. I've been meaning to get a pumpkin for a while but thought we had plenty of time. Then this week, I realized that Halloween is less than a week away so we stopped and got one.

On the way home from picking out the perfect pumpkin you talking a good game about how you were going to scoop out the pumpkin. Then you were going to give him circle eyes, a triangle nose, and a crescent mouth. When it got to the part of cleaning out the pumpkin guts you totally chickened out. You were having NONE of that! So I had to scoop out the pumpkin insides while you supervised. We were going to wash and cook the pumpkin seeds until our cat jumped up on the table and started chowing down. Turns out Babies the Cat LOVES fresh pumpkin, seeds and all!

Your pumpkin turned out just like you wanted him too look. Before we started carving you took a crayon and planned out exactly how you wanted him to look. Now every night before you go to bed you have to go outside and turn on your little light in the pumpkin before you go to bed.

This week we also went to your annual playgroup Halloween party. We've gone every year since 2006 when you were just one year old. Back then you were just barely learning how to stand up on your own. Since you are in school all day during the week we really don't get to see your playgroup pals that much anymore. It was so nice to catch up with them and reminisce about how young you all were when we had our first Halloween party. Halloween is going to be SO MUCH FUN this year.

Little boo, I love you to the moon and back,

Lucas' Mommy

Babies

Our cat, Babies (who we've had for 8 years) is finally warming up to Lucas

Dear Lucas (4 Years and 2 Months and 2 days),

This last month has been one crazy busy month full of change and lots of adjustments. The first big thing is that you started school. Since you are in school during the day, I've been staying with your Great-Gram more. At least two days a week your Dad picks you up from school and even gets dinner started long before I ever get home. Some times I don't get home until it is almost your bedtime. The first night that I walked in late you looked up at me and said, "Who are you? Oh, are you my Mom?" I didn't know 4 year olds could be sarcastic, yeah pretty much proves you are my kid right there.

You liked the first two or three days of school and then you were OVER it! You decided that you were DONE with school and never wanted to go back. You would beg and plead and fake sick to try and get to stay home. One day we were in the car headed to school and you tried to bargain with me, "If you take me home now, I'll clean my room." When you would realize that we were STILL headed to school you would start digging your heels into the seat in front of you and use your hands to cover your car seat buckles. A few times I even had to get teachers to help me pry you out of the car. Some days it would be one teacher and one day it took FOUR! I think one of the hardest things I've ever had to do was drive away from the school while you were being carried away kicking and screaming, "I WANT TO GO WITH MY MOMMY!" Thankfully, those days seem far behind us!

You still try to talk me into keeping you home from school EVERY SINGLE day. You give up when you see that I am NOT turning the car around that you ARE GOING TO SCHOOL. On the way to school a few days ago you were playing with your Magna doodle and drew little scribble lines and said "Mom, I wrote you a note. I'm going to read it now. It says 'Dear Mom, Please don't take me to school. Turn the car around and go home. Pretty Pretty Please. Love Lucas." Kid, you crack me up. You don't know how tempted I am to just keep you home one day and just do all kinds of fun stuff together. I am even pretty sure that I know that I would enjoy it even more than you would. However, I know that if I do it one day it will just make it harder for you to go back to school the next day. So for right now we just have to make the most of our afternoons and our weekends and count down the days until school breaks.

The thing I look forward to the most is picking you up from school. I love watching you march in line from across the yard and I always know when you spot me. Your eyes light up and you usually wave and squeal "MOMMY!" as soon as you see me. Seriously, this is the BEST feeling in the world. On the ride home I try to get you to spill the beans on what you did at school or even what you chose for lunch. For some reason you HATE answering these questions. We have to wait for you to tell us in your own way. You will start singing some new song we've never heard you sing before or talk about a friend at school (the first few weeks you talked about a boy named Kevin but now all you want to talk about is a cute little blond girl.) I guess my questions are rubbing off on you because at dinner tonight you turned to your Dad and said, "So Daddy, what did YOU do today?"

I miss getting to do all the fun stuff we used to do together before you started school, especially our playgroup. We still try to fit special family stuff in, like going to the park together or planting pumpkin seeds. I also miss laying in bed with you in the morning and cuddling with you while you watched cartoons while we talked about what we should do that day. We've replaced our morning snuggle time with an evening one. This cartoon that you love called Phineas & Ferb, comes on at 6pm every night, so the two of us cuddle up in mine and Daddy's bed and watch it together. Our time together is even more precious now. It doesn't even seem like I had a whole four years with you at home. As cliche as it sounds it seriously feels like you were a baby yesterday and then I blinked and you are in school.

After the cartoons and snuggle time then come the bedtime stories. You have quite the ever growing collection of books. Tonight we had to clear out another shelf so that we could make more room. Lately, I've been buying you books about kids that wear glasses, since the other big change this month has been you've started to wear glasses yourself. I'm hoping the books will encourage you to wear your glasses more since you don't know anyone your age that wears them and sometimes you don't want to wear them. I do know they are helping you because I've noticed when you aren't wearing them you bump into stuff and trip over stuff, which you never used to do. I think you've gotten used to actually SEEING things.

Lately, the book you request the most is Peter Pan. It also happens to be the movie you request the most and what you pretend to be the most. So much so that one night I walked into your room to find your bed sheets sliced to pieces. When I asked you about it you produced a large knife you had swiped from the kitchen and explained that you were being Peter Pan like in the movie when he slices up the Pirate ship sails. It made perfect sense to you. We've since replaced the REAL knife with a plastic pretend one, which you even fell asleep still holding one night.

A few weeks ago we added another member to our family. You and your father decided that we NEEDED a hamster. You both promised to take care of the hamster and that I would not have to take care of the cute furry thing at all. So with the addition of Tinkerbell (noticing a theme here?) we now are a family of 5. So far you guys are taking excellent care of Tink.

Sweet Pea, I love you to the moon and back,

Mommy