Nine Years Old!

Earlier this month Colin celebrated his ninth birthday!  His special day is September 7th which fell on a Friday this year.  He selected a restaurant to go to enjoy a celebratory dinner.  He picked Old Bag of Nails for shrimp (which looking back on his birthday blog post from last year is exactly what he chose for his 8th birthday)!  I guess some things don't change. After enjoying some seafood we headed back home for cake and presents.  He went to Nothing Bundt Cakes with Keith to pick out some mini bundt cakes for us to share.  For his birthday he got a complete bed makeover from Meme and Pop Pop (new sheets and blanket and a cool gel mattress topper), a new scooter from us, Pokeman binder, pages, and cards from Grandma and Grandpa, and some other cool gifts and money from other relatives and friends.  We also bought him a book that he wanted called "Everything You Need to Ace Science in One Big Fat Notebook."  I've never had an easier time buying a gift for one of my children! 

Nothing beats Moolah for your birthday!

Ultimate Bed Makeover components!

Birthday smiles

Me and my beautiful man-boy

On Sunday Colin had a "friend" birthday party.  He invited over four close friends (two neighborhood pals and two friends from school).  They had pizza and cake at our house (lightsaber cupcakes were a pretty good success) and opened gifts at our house.  Of course everyone then wanted to play with the Nerf guns that Colin got as gifts.  After some playtime Keith took them to play laser tag.  I think Colin enjoyed his birthday and special day with friends.

May the Force be with you

The birthday gang

Love this mix of serious and happy expressions!

At nine he is still very much a social butterfly.  He has two good buddies in the neighborhood (Broder and Thomas) who are both in sixth grade.  The age difference doesn't seem to matter.  He runs around with them every chance they get.  They have movie parties, sleepovers, and go places together.  He loves having those two close by.  Colin is still a bookworm.  He likes reading series like "Big Nate" and "Treasure Hunters." He also likes non-fiction like the science book he wanted.  He loves reading the "Weird But True" books and is always spouting off facts from those.  Colin enjoyed playing baseball for the first time this spring.  Some kids don't like the slow-pace of baseball but I think the slower pace made it right of Colin's alley!  Colin is into coding and enjoys playing Hour of Code online where he actually gets to affect what is happening on the screen in a game with the code he writes.  Luckily he gets some good help from Keith when he gets stuck!  He's also taking a Sphyro coding class at after school one day a week at school right now and is learning how to program a robot.

Colin's growth did not taper in his 10th year.  His unofficial measurements are:

• Height: 59 inches (4' 11")
• Weight: 87 lbs

Happy, happy birthday Colin!  We love you!