Colin Turns Six

Colin turned six on Monday!  He was born on Labor Day and this year his birthday fell on Labor Day again for the first time since his birth.  It was a busy weekend for us, full of celebrating.  My parents' 50th wedding anniversary was Friday, September 4th and we celebrated it with a lovely gathering at my brother's house on Sunday.  He happens to live about 5 minutes away from Keith's parents so we stayed with them all weekend.

It was the first time that we couldn't just take off for Indiana first thing in the morning because Colin is in REAL school now!  He's in afternoon kindergarten (it is not full day here) so we had to wait until school was over to pick him up and head to Grandma and Grandpa's.  The girls are in afternoon preschool three days a week so we picked them up first then hurried over to pick up Colin and we were on our way.  We didn't mind pulling Colin out of school when it was only preschool but now he's in the real deal.  All our kids are loving school, by the way!

We presented Colin with a few options of things to do to celebrate his birthday in Indiana.  He chose to go to Indiana Caverns, a cave that includes a boat ride. We did that on Saturday morning. It was his first time in a cave (the girls too) and he really got into it!  He thought it was pretty cool and exciting and liked the whole experience.  I was worried the girls might be scared but they weren't.  If anything they were a little bored by the whole thing but at least they weren't terrified.  Grandma went all out for Colin's birthday with a construction theme and had an awesome cake and decorations made for him.  He loved that.  He opened his gifts later in the afternoon (almost everything was Star Wars themed, mostly Star Wars Lego) and then we went out to dinner at a place of his choosing.  He said it was an awesome day for him!

Spelunker

Ready to dig into that pile of presents!

What he was really hoping for!  Mos Eisley cantina Lego set

Waiting for Grandma to cut the cake

Construction crew

Sunday was my parents' anniversary party which was also awesome!  My brother and his wife did a fantastic job setting up for it and attending to all of the details that made it so special.  I spent a lot of time this summer putting together a DVD montage of pictures set to music of their 50 years of marriage.  That was a big hit and everyone seemed to enjoy it.  Colin got to open a couple more gifts that day from my sister and brother (more Star Wars Lego).

Opening a card from Aunt Nancy and family while cousin Jack looks on

Monday was Colin's actual birthday.  Grandma made him sprinkle and chocolate chip pancakes and bacon for breakfast and Meme sent him a little gift to open up that morning since it was his actual birthday.  Keith and I had already given Colin his main gift from us a couple of weeks prior which was a new bike.  We gave him some bike accessories on Saturday.  We were remarking that Colin is 6 and is already on his fourth bike.  He started out on a little balance bike, then briefly rode a 12-inch bike.  For his 4th birthday we bought him a 16-inch bike which he had outgrown which is why we bought him a 20-inch bike this year.  Speaking of growing out of things, here are Colin's unofficial measurements:

Height: 51.5 inches
Weight: 65 lbs

He is still huge!  Colin seems to be really enjoying kindergarten so far.  His favorite thing is riding the school bus.  He is playing soccer again this fall and had his first practice last night.  He loves Star Wars, Legos, and Skylanders.  He is a social butterfly and always wants to be playing with friends whenever possible.  He is good at math and enjoys it too.  He always wants us to ask him word problems.  His reading has greatly improved over the summer too.  Maybe due to the fact that we let him earn a Skylander for reading 30 books.  He read at least 90 books this summer because we've bought 3 Sklyanders so far!  Now we just have to figure out how to get him to want to read without earning a sticker for a chart!