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

It's been far too long since I've done a post about our Maxy! He's such a blessing in our home and I absolutely adore this boy. Some things to remember about him:

He's smart! He really took off reading about a year ago and has been into chapter books for 6 months now. He's one of the top readers in his class and says he's the top math student too. :)
He asks a lot of questions. He wants to understand exactly how things work and wants a deep understanding of life. I read the books chapter books at night and he stops me once a paragraph to ask something about what I'm reading. It drives Andy crazy who prefers a much faster pace. ;) He's really articulate too, which I think is related.
He's our cuddler. He's always loved to cuddle since he was a baby! He still loves it and it makes me so happy. If we're watching a movie he's usually cuddling with me and it's my favorite thing.
He's got natural swagger. He's got all sorts of crazy moves and is a good dancer. We signed him up for hip hop class this year with his friend Bentley. He loves showing us his moves and really likes his teacher Tanner.
He's as sweet as can be but also has quite the temper, ha ha. Things make him SO mad. Just this last week I had sent him to time out for something and he came downstairs to tell me that I was yelling at him too much and said really angrily, "You know, you could go to jail for this!" He's got a lot of angsty one-liners and gets some good time in time-out as a result.
He loves school. His Kindergarten teacher was Mrs. King; she was fantastic and he adored her. His closest friends in Kindergarten were Sawyer and Greyson Katz, who we carpooled with. His first grade teacher is Mrs. Driggs and he loves her too.
He's very into crushes. He's over Avery now (though I think she still likes him). He's cycled through a lot of crushes, but at this point likes to say that he doesn't have any crushes but always has a list of which girls have crushes on him. He says he think it's really gross when girls have crushes on him, but seems delighted at the same time. He asks the girls in his class who their crushes are all the time.
He loves playing with friends and his a good group he likes to play with. He loves to play with Graham, Bentley, Ford, Jesse, Cooper, and Bailey. He says he's too old to play with Kindergarteners and refuses to play with any of his friends who are a grade younger than him.
He started piano lessons with Grandma Jean when he turned 5, but we took a break about 9 months in. It wasn't working for anyone. He took about a year off and then re-started this past August. It's going much better this time around. He's a real perfectionist and finds it very frustrating when he makes mistakes. He really likes to get things exactly right. There are some struggles with keeping a positive attitude during practicing, so we've experimented with various incentives--most effective has been Pokemon cards. Right now he loves playing Cuckoo, Up on the Housetop, and London Bridge. Cameron is doing about half of the practicing with him right now, which is really great for everyone.
He's been really into Pokemon for almost two years now and has a big binder full of cards. Other favorite toys are legos (which he LOVES to build) and Bakugon.
He's playing soccer again this year! He likes having Graham on his team. Their team this year is "the oranges." He's progressed a whole lot, but he's bummed he's still never made a goal. He says to me, "Mom, how come everyone on the team has made a goal except for me?" :( He doesn't usually put a ton of effort into playing, so it might be related to that. He might be done with soccer, we'll see. He says like loves to play football at school, so we might find him a flag football team.
He's quite the entrepreneur. For about a year now he's caught the bug of selling things and has had quite a few ventures. Selling snow cones (snow from outside with torani syrup ha ha), pictures, peaches (his most successful venture), soda cans, lemonade, etc. He's always begging to "sell things." This last week I was talking to him about how maybe he could study business in college because he likes selling things so much, to which he replied,"But what would I even learn? I already know everything about selling things." Lots of confidence, ha ha.
This last summer he finally decided he wanted to learn to ride a 2 wheeler bike. He's been capable for probably 2 years but just stubbornly said he wouldn't. Once he decided to learn he's really taken off and loves it. You can find him outside riding all the time. He started mountain biking this summer too and is pretty gutsy. He also conquered learning how to swim this last summer--similar to biking, it was a mental thing for him. He loves that too and is a little fish now!
He and Andy are best friends and best enemies too. They play all day but it's peppered with a good amount of arguing too. :) He and Andy started sharing a room last summer when Davis was born. I think it's made them closer but has also increased the conflict. Max is on the top bunk and Andy on the bottom.
He's still very intentional about his clothes and is very opinionated on exactly what he wears and what looks good and doesn't. He likes to tuck shirts in and really likes tall socks. I've completely given up fighting him on clothes. Our current issue is that he wants to wear t-shirts to school every day and I won't let him because it's too cold. Just so he can stick it to me he wears a t-shirt under the long sleeve shirts I make him wear ha ha. He'll look at me all smugly and show me the t-shirt hiding underneath his shirt and say "look at this." Little stinker.
He's very funny and really cracks us up. He really is such a joy in our home and we love him so much.

Kindergarten Picture

Apparently I haven't taken a picture of his team from this year, so this is Max's soccer team from last year. They only got to play in the fall because Coronavirus canceled the spring season.