Cameron, Stephanie, Andy, & Max: Andy at age 7

Sunday, July 1, 2018

Andy at age 7

HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY to our Andy!

It's one of the greatest blessings of my life to be this wonderful boy's mother. He's a total light and energy in our home. He's a hard worker, has a good heart, is so bright, and is always working on something. He's destined to do big things in life! Some things to remember about Andy at this age:

He's incredibly creative: he's always working on projects. He gets up every morning around 6 and by the time I wake up at 7 or 7:30, he's always showing me some fun thing he's been working on. A book of dragons, a book about his beanie boos, a school folder for each of his beanie boos, etc. Or a lot of times he's already started on his work for the morning--he's a true self-starter.
He's a very friendly neighbor. :) He delivered notebooks he made (blank paper stapled together) to a bunch of our surrounding neighbors. We just had new next door neighbors move in last week and he was the first one to stop by (without me knowing). He told the man all of our names and middle names, church callings, how old we are, etc. and seriously said, "Welcome to the neighborhood!" ha ha ha
He's so smart. Good thing we didn't hold this summer birthday boy back! He's at the top of his class, and his teacher suggests that we get him tested for the gifted and talented program. He just finished first grade in Mrs. Knight's class and will start second grade in the fall.
He's a fantastic reader. I think he's told everyone he knows that he's on level 17 on Lexia (the reading computer program at school) and he's the highest in the first grade. (Confident boy!) Apparently that's a 4th grade level or something? He's really taken off with chapter books this last year! He read his first chapter book in October or November (in a single morning after he got up early). He's read dozens and dozens since then. He loves the Magic Treehouse Series, Bailey School Kids Series, Notebook of Doom Series, and we just got him a Roald Dahl collection he's loving and working his way through.
He's always coming up with fun initiatives and ideas--he hosted a neighborhood bike race this year, which he made invitations and invited people to without even telling me, ha ha. And then he made a SSMP (super secret monster patrol) inspired by the notebook of doom series and held meetings with some neighborhood kids.
He's become really into Legos. Most of his birthday presents were legos and he spends a good chunk of time working on legos each day, especially if he has a new set to work on.
He continues to excel at piano. He gave his first recital back in March, where he performed 19 pieces all by himself and was the entire program! He works so hard each day practicing and rarely complains. I'm so proud of him. He's a hard worker. Right now his favorite thing to play is "Clowns" by Kabalevsky, which we're all a little worn out of. :)
His favorite friends to play with right now are Beckham, Mitt, Isaac & Ren (our twin neighbors who just moved), Henry, and Owen.
His favorite foods are nachos and pizza. He's not excited about eating much else and is the most terribly picky eater. :(
He's turned into a great swimmer! He begs us to go swimming every day. And we feel like we (basically) don't need to watch him anymore. He can swim all over the deep end and loves to touch the bottom.
His singing is the sweetest thing ever. He has this (slightly forced) vibrato that is the cutest thing ever. He sings loud and proud and I love it.
He's still the most high energy person I know! He never walks. He always runs or skips (cutest thing ever). When I pick him up from school, I love to watch his large-leap skips over to the van.
He still loves his TV time. I let him have an hour/day of screen time, but he could definitely watch all day if I let him.
It's looking like he's about to get glasses! He's got an appointment with an ophthalmologist in a few weeks.
He's still super tall (90th percentile) and handsome as ever.